Malicious Office (OLE) / .XLS — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 7def29eab1b4775e…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

232.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 0a4080360babdb2aaca83ddaafb1d15f SHA-1: 43120922aa1edf943d72ca6a52eb48cb2562889d SHA-256: 7def29eab1b4775ede1a532ad941ffb1558e2ea347fb556c7166304987ef1d8a
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.002 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains an Auto_Open macro that uses dangerous functions, including the RUN function, indicating an attempt to execute arbitrary code. The document body presents a social engineering lure, prompting the user to enable editing and content, which is a common tactic for macro-based malware delivery. The presence of environment evasion techniques suggests the macro is designed to hinder analysis.

Heuristics 4

  • Excel 4.0 Auto_Open defined name critical OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN_DEFINEDNAME
    oletools recovered an Auto_Open / Auto_Close entry from an Excel 4.0 macro sheet. The raw BIFF name can be tokenized or partially opaque to byte-string checks, but the recovered macro listing confirms the workbook has an XLM auto-execution entry.
  • XLM Auto_Open with dangerous formula APIs critical OLE_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet contains an Auto_Open / Auto_Close entry and dangerous XLM formula APIs that can invoke programs, write files, or transfer control without VBA.
  • XLM Auto_Open environment-evasion HALT gate high OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_HALT
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes multiple GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW environment checks and halts execution when the host does not match the expected user environment. This is a common sandbox-evasion pattern in XLM malware and is stronger than a bare XLM macro-sheet indicator.
  • Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro sheet present medium OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN
    Workbook contains an Excel 4.0 macro sheet sub-stream — XLM is rarely seen in modern legitimate workbooks and was a major Office malware vector during 2020-2022.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
12b41d15e0e22ead84f5fbdd0c838773fd05797015d9d8492fc47e58230927ea		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 337995 bytes

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