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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9fa9fd1547dc6b30…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

101.5 KB Created: 2012-09-07 12:05:17 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 2f3d6bea85d71c76da12dbec7b3e14c0 SHA-1: 7831127c75673247f7ec9ad341e51820da583525 SHA-256: 9fa9fd1547dc6b30f36b71a5f839761917390cf23e0b5e51b370ee90a0830d38
628 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.001 PowerShell T1059.005 Visual Basic T1218.011 Rundll32 T1059.003 Windows Command Shell

The sample is an Excel spreadsheet containing VBA macros that are designed to execute automatically upon opening. The macros leverage WScript.Shell and WMI (Win32_Process) to launch additional payloads. The presence of Workbook_Open and Auto_Open subroutines, along with the 'SE_ENABLE_LURE' and 'SE_CLIPBOARD_COMMAND_LURE' heuristics, indicates a strong intent to deceive the user into enabling macro execution. The document body content, while appearing benign as a construction or expense report, likely serves as a lure to mask the malicious macro activity.

Heuristics 16

  • Shell() call in VBA critical OLE_VBA_SHELL
    Shell() call in VBA
  • WScript.Shell usage critical OLE_VBA_WSCRIPT
    WScript.Shell usage
  • VBA WMI Win32_Process launcher critical OLE_VBA_WMI_PROCESS_CREATE
    VBA macro builds or references a WMI moniker for Win32_Process and invokes .Create to start a command. This is a high-confidence macro execution chain that often hides the WMI class name through string concatenation or helper functions.
  • ClamAV: Xls.Virus.Mailcab-6702020-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Virus.Mailcab-6702020-0
  • Reference to Windows Script Host high SC_STR_WSCRIPT
    Reference to Windows Script Host
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • Auto_Open macro high OLE_VBA_AUTO
    Auto_Open macro
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject call
  • GetObject call high OLE_VBA_GETOBJ
    GetObject call
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Compiled VBA/cache stream contains an auto-execution token together with shell/download/object-execution tokens. This catches p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where visible source is unavailable.
  • Clipboard command execution lure high SE_CLIPBOARD_COMMAND_LURE
    Document tells the user to copy or paste clipboard content into Run, PowerShell, cmd, or another shell-like execution context
  • Suspicious extracted artifact high EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.
  • 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
  • Environ() call (env variable access) low OLE_VBA_ENVIRON
    Environ() call (env variable access)

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
b9c2dbe27fdff918bf63d672ebea8d816aa9b3f90e4e4faa6f8a79b534a6154e		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 27717 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 7 shell/COM execution token(s). Carved artifact contains 9 Chr/ChrW string-construction calls. Carved macro source contains an auto-exec entry point and execution/download terms.

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