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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 99eb4723d8c7ce97…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

132.0 KB Created: 2020-11-20 17:59:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 9bd5cfd4e9711d220d5ae8c12e15199b SHA-1: 2038a3a7387cbba8a9796e266901a7cf3d7ce54c SHA-256: 99eb4723d8c7ce970b26cd9d58c518dc7c72935cc8df904f509fb4e0fba27b11
148 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 PowerShell T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious Link

The critical OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN and OLE_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN heuristics indicate the presence of an Excel 4.0 macro designed to execute code. The macro constructs and executes a PowerShell command that downloads a file named 'wo.exe' from 'https://cutt.ly/ZhAMLAA' and then executes it. This indicates a downloader or dropper functionality.

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.
  • 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.
  • VBA project contains no executable statements low OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains a VBA project, but extracted modules only contain attributes/options/comments and no executable statements.

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
30b35e311560663dab80880441d58ec189fb35e8b20f798d37257784c72d8926
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1892 bytes
macros.bas
fed365d3401536fb63e11d0a36cc7c35338c0a8c74a96fb254c46366ad6287cd
vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 642 bytes