Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9f7c1b4b6d07ab21…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

36.0 KB Created: 2020-11-25 10:25:30 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 491dfbce7e6a26a32ebf9a6130327946 SHA-1: 9525e37436f98e6d37f57ecccba5567b894ba0c2 SHA-256: 9f7c1b4b6d07ab218832fa7842d9f7fd90074c7b1f462928a4022b3042a62ece
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled workbook detected with critical heuristics for OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN and OLE_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN, indicating the presence of an Auto_Open macro that uses dangerous functions like RUN. This suggests the macro is designed to execute arbitrary code, likely downloading and running a second-stage payload. No specific family could be identified.

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
5b04e39307eba39f5b2ced323ed36b7eb5a1a98f74e1473c0ab5db28130b05d8		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6379 bytes

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