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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 87f9030063e6aa74…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

380.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 59270e8df095974642862a577b372e82 SHA-1: fa923986d0fced3869f5bcd3fae50b4e921ca509 SHA-256: 87f9030063e6aa7461b8925b723ac32c7c68fa03db4735bae8190205b3200167
162 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 workbook containing an Auto_Open macro, which is a common technique for executing malicious code upon opening. The macro is designed to bypass security by luring the user to enable content. It then proceeds to download a payload from one of the provided URLs, likely leading to further infection.

Heuristics 5

  • XLM Auto_Open workbook with payload URL or enable-content lure critical OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN_PAYLOAD_LURE
    Workbook contains an Excel 4.0 macro sheet with Auto_Open / Auto_Close and also exposes a payload URL or enable-content lure in the OLE bytes. This combination is a high-confidence XLM downloader/social-engineering pattern even when formula recovery cannot decode the full macro chain.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Macro/content-enable lure medium SE_ENABLE_LURE
    Document instructs the user to enable macros or editing — a common technique used by malware droppers to bypass Office macro security settings
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL https://thedeformo.com/zrbLAqMKy21Y/lena.html
    • https://faithfulroofingco.com/nmsY1dCNaBRO/lena.html

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
13ea4a1fd330f9266fa91027043baa61f334e3ac691e10ce14b7c7fee97c551c
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8812 bytes