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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 8f37b895439bc375…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

158.5 KB Created: 2020-09-20 21:17:44
MD5: e7c538bd74097b23a69d32a7a28af7fc SHA-1: 32e6ed2315e6faef7526054e51f727b9bd64c744 SHA-256: 8f37b895439bc3751e219c650f5e04d72b81aec38f42965689fe92e67076eb22
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The critical OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN and OLE_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN heuristics indicate the presence of an Excel 4.0 macro designed to execute arbitrary commands. Specifically, the macro uses PowerShell to download a file named 'pd.bat' from the URL https://cutt.ly/6jpPJ8T and save it to the temporary directory. It then proceeds to execute this downloaded batch file, likely to perform further malicious actions.

Heuristics 3

  • 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.
  • 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
cd72203036d27deda6d4b2516113b36e3125b1998c1e9358249cc7acc42780b7
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1484 bytes