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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 80ecd0d16acabdf0…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

144.0 KB Created: 2020-09-28 00:53:43 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 624a9e6d19522c1a59529a71a536e58a SHA-1: bb2c80a1d608a688659830a6261bbb0aca2bbf9c SHA-256: 80ecd0d16acabdf0b51b841b978ae9b02ee4a475ce5069bbd28c203af8f92841
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro. The document body prompts the user to 'Enable Editing' and 'Enable Content', which would trigger the macro. The macro sheet contains a HALT gate for environment evasion and uses dangerous formula APIs like RUN, indicating it is designed to execute arbitrary commands. No specific family could be identified, but the technique is consistent with macro-based malware delivery.

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
def7fe61ec26f1f625e639828445172319035414096eef8ac7da3d264980733e		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 170069 bytes

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