Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis — malicious · 9b470dacf861d9d4

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

54.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel

MD5: 10db4ddd87c4b4cf62eb9235f4dc858e SHA-1: adf95d3be555f29a54d910445f6fc6fbdd960795 SHA-256: 9b470dacf861d9d4ed1bde3aefeccdfba8bae060db8f96536528362524f2b74c

300 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK

T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.001 PowerShell T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses an Auto_Open macro to execute. It also contains VBA macros that utilize the URLDownloadToFile API. The VBA script reconstructs the URL 'http://' and concatenates it with a value from Sheets("Files").Range("B60"), then saves the downloaded content to a path specified by Sheets("Files").Range("B56"). This indicates the file's purpose is to download and execute a second-stage payload from a remote server. The presence of multiple suspicious URLs and the use of macro-enable lures further support this assessment.

Heuristics 7

Reference to URLDownloadToFile API critical SC_STR_URLDOWNLOAD

Reference to URLDownloadToFile API
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.
URLDownloadToFile in VBA critical OLE_VBA_DOWNLOAD

URLDownloadToFile in 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 macros detected medium OLE_VBA_MACROS

Document contains VBA macro code
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

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

Filename	Kind	Source	Size
`xlm_macros.txt` `8a871f182a98e6b1d5e8febbad16f5605b448e4a43514dbcd8c285ebea006831`	xlm-macro	oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing)	5046 bytes
`macros.bas` `ece210f14e9b6afe85068ad0748dbb5e99e99683073cb7bcdc843838318563a0`	vba-macro	oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source)	1692 bytes

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