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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 8a6b17fafa087973…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

164.0 KB Created: 2020-03-23 21:29:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 453a7300b2c0d9e4cf90846201f26ab2 SHA-1: 071bdc3e1faa9a76cce2cbea5a89ed67984f9da0 SHA-256: 8a6b17fafa087973a726f119c14a2d464a5bcf651f35bc61e46a3ad0056e4c5e
260 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.003 Windows Command Shell

This XLS file contains a Workbook_Open VBA macro that utilizes character-shifting functions (Asc, Chr, Mid) to decode and execute a shell command. The presence of the Shell() call and the auto-execution trigger strongly suggest the macro's purpose is to download and execute a second-stage payload. The specific command decoded is not fully reconstructible from the provided evidence, limiting the IOCs.

Heuristics 6

  • Shell() call in VBA critical OLE_VBA_SHELL
    Shell() call in VBA
  • VBA character-shift decoded Shell command critical OLE_VBA_ASC_CHR_SHIFT_SHELL
    VBA auto-exec macro stores an encoded command string, decodes it with a Mid/Asc/Chr character-shift loop, and passes the recovered text to Shell. This is a high-confidence command stager.
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Compiled VBA/cache stream contains an auto-execution token together with shell/download/object-execution tokens. This catches p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where visible source is unavailable.
  • Suspicious extracted artifact high EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.
  • VBA macros detected medium OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains VBA macro code

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
1024d0aabeaf4c3f2a928779ea44966d575b7a2560550605e333af1f5431c933		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 2719 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved macro source contains an auto-exec entry point and execution/download terms.

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