Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a4a7edd615da589b…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

36.0 KB Created: 2020-11-27 11:46:27 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2021-06-28
MD5: 925b8eb2d8a782c3de70b5229979a476 SHA-1: cb5c699f16f7e4acf97c2c2f0b82b9e920d312fc SHA-256: a4a7edd615da589b28b72fb401716482d0e3951c2c514e355e17e508f71cb0d7
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file contains critical heuristic firings indicating the presence of Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros with an Auto_Open defined name and dangerous formula APIs. This suggests the macro is designed to automatically execute upon opening the document, likely to download and execute a secondary payload. No specific family could be identified, and no direct IOCs like URLs or hashes were extracted from the macro content itself.

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 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6845 bytes
SHA-256: 0fec5a5b8dc79799fad38ad0d3ef228c36b4e92a60711c1694b1ab583b65aebd
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, visible -  Sheet
' 0085     19 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, visible -  qmBhXBLPKq
' 0018     22 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - ACnHPrt len=0 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - built-in-name 1 Auto_Open len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!H193 
' 0018     27 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - CFGCcXgveBHY len=0 
' 0018     22 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - CqlzMcJ len=0 
' 0018     24 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - CVbCWTzjj len=0 
' 0018     24 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - DziWzFwln len=0 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - gWibpdrb len=0 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - HNwRagOv len=0 
' 0018     20 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - jaHat len=0 
' 0018     22 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - KssIPyb len=0 
' 0018     25 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - mlQpVTCXWz len=0 
' 0018     24 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - NAJbQuchy len=0 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - oYaRwLTy len=0 
' 0018     27 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - PbRSIiOPyuHC len=0 
' 0018     26 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - qBbDdNCOLUT len=0 
' 0018     22 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - sBNuzID len=0 
' 0018     26 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - SscRZvrKlCq len=0 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - tEvbLhjq len=0 
' 0018     24 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - TmsyyXSdM len=0 
' 0018     24 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - VzgSIRnrz len=0 
' 0018     20 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - zDZcP len=0 
' 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
' 00f
... (truncated)

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