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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9c27f8a4f11c91de…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

378.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-07-13
MD5: d336adc8600eb7119cc672f12117fda6 SHA-1: d8367af087b2223071c38b52c9595e7fca489d96 SHA-256: 9c27f8a4f11c91de9ecd5362d66293c7567b953fa6fc096b7da166ad9e6b7ac4
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample contains Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros with an Auto_Open entry, indicating it's designed to execute automatically upon opening. It also includes a lure to enable macros, a common technique for malware droppers. The extracted URL 'http://rmdwk19obfzrq03ohby.xyz/apple.gif' is likely used to download and execute a second-stage payload.

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.
  • 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.
  • 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 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
855e443b676f37217d33677a9c6a10a49b0648d00e8aa00f6d93fbdd2229abce
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 4016 bytes