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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9c8e1b2166d0ee3d…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

364.5 KB Created: 2020-06-29 10:28:27 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: fb7103737708c995ca3610991cd153b4 SHA-1: 57c71c49cdd5adbd6765b067e7cba4ecaa8263f3 SHA-256: 9c8e1b2166d0ee3df1c3fc9c6e4f16fe6378be10fa7f9ed2eac4e84139d7f152
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.002 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro sheet that uses an Auto_Open macro for execution. The document body contains a lure instructing the user to 'enable editing and content' to bypass macro security. The presence of an environment-evasion close gate suggests an attempt to hinder analysis. The macro sheet contains obfuscated sheet names which may be used to hide malicious content or commands.

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 environment-evasion close gate critical OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_CLOSE
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes environment checks with GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW, then shows a fake corruption/error message and closes the workbook when the host fails those checks. This is a malware sandbox-evasion pattern, even when the later payload stage is hidden behind obfuscated defined-name flow.
  • 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
df6a42f17be7deec49b0e1e17eec8899fada2cfb57d6b733373330ca0b80fc31		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 47878 bytes

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