Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a1692c6d82afc11b…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

147.0 KB Created: 2019-04-26 13:37:59 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2020-09-15
MD5: 1b230ec057ca63103bcc152c9d65d44e SHA-1: 65ff4ccc9df22538ae241215115dab731a4df231 SHA-256: a1692c6d82afc11ba63d63d04644af1d0f7aa2deb882931b03b0821c0b9588d3
80 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The critical heuristic firing indicates the presence of an Excel 4.0 Auto_Open macro, which is designed to execute automatically when the workbook is opened. This is a common technique for delivering malware. The document body contains obfuscated data, suggesting it is not intended for direct user interaction but rather as a container for the malicious macro.

Heuristics 2

  • 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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 90143 bytes
SHA-256: 955394631219158763656b52897ae7130114b9b01d9609ba0e123fab85ded3a1
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, visible -  Sheet
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, visible -  DVWTS
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - built-in-name 1 Auto_Open hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!GJ49628 
' 0018     27 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - hxhCT hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!GJ49628 
' 0018     31 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -       hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00<\xc1\x96\xc1\xb1\x00\xb1\x00'
' 0018     31 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -       hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00a\xc1\xf4\xc1\xdc\x00\xdc\x00'
' 0018     29 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -         hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!GJ49633 
' 0018     30 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -      hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00]\xc1\xae\xc1\xc2\x00\xc2\x00'
' 0018     29 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -         hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!GJ49632 
' 0018     30 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -          hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!GJ49634 
' 0018     31 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -           hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!GJ49630 
' 0018     30 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -      hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00\x82\xc1\x04\xc2\xe0\x00\xe0\x00'
' 002a      2 PRINTHEADERS : Print Row/Column Labels
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST 
... (truncated)