Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a1ea06126e09e3a7…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

36.0 KB Created: 2020-11-27 11:42:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 99293062f6039af6638eda1e0e5da5b2 SHA-1: c1b1ef4dc1d99ce38576e8bc485f235484000d14 SHA-256: a1ea06126e09e3a7df0754b826144e2fc5e93c61eab968657b3dcc11328f7bf4
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is an Excel workbook containing Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros. A critical heuristic identified an Auto_Open defined name, indicating that the macro will execute automatically when the workbook is opened. The presence of dangerous formula APIs further suggests malicious intent, likely to download and execute a second-stage payload.

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
367ab15ca47458c81eb37ca282ad348cf079616e7dce0b659befb27e86283c5c		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6735 bytes

Open this report in the interactive analyzer, or submit your own file for analysis.