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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a0e4f7699cdffaa2…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

142.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: edf992d0c533d92c2c417f0f0cb84fd9 SHA-1: 15539a9a420e3922e87c95f6deb278a06207a84b SHA-256: a0e4f7699cdffaa2298576e4b84ed93dead9e27d85dba0508ea11b7d772697ac
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.002 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File T1059.005 PowerShell

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses an Auto_Open macro to execute. It impersonates DocuSign to trick the user into enabling macros, a common lure for malware delivery. The extracted URLs are likely used to download a second-stage payload. The XLM macro itself appears to be heavily obfuscated or truncated, preventing a more detailed analysis of its specific actions.

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.
  • 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
  • Document signing service impersonation lure medium SE_DOCUSIGN_LURE
    Document impersonates DocuSign, Adobe Sign, or a similar signing service in a signing-request context

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
fd395c0d5efe31bc3f4c13f428339dafef8132102e75fdb8cfce92015175af32
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 2730 bytes