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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9a87a7724ffe1ce4…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

251.0 KB Created: 2020-07-15 13:21:51 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 9932731cdbb70aef25eb3ce0578fbb12 SHA-1: 330e1d94e26902bbdc7f147cd6da148117627cb4 SHA-256: 9a87a7724ffe1ce4cdaf2c35d6667a2714231a7fa5279c28d3e92fb78d0bfadf
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for executing malicious code upon opening the document. The document body displays a message prompting the user to 'Enable Editing' and 'Enable Content', a common social engineering tactic to bypass security warnings and execute the embedded macro. No specific URLs or executable payloads were extracted, but the presence of the Auto_Open macro and the social engineering lure strongly indicate a malicious intent to execute arbitrary code.

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
6b46f8444ea1a965bbb4a6a0bf4b1c743e949d0214fc66ace05328f6eecd81ef
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 268239 bytes