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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a55441611147f7cd…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

180.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 1081d543729ba96c3ba14061b7023675 SHA-1: 5d1eb2a67c0a48e5e0ad0ec293741f4ef1bf402d SHA-256: a55441611147f7cd08b64b2676362bfabd95924beca951f0c4f1a9db6a9cb859
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.001 PowerShell

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet that uses an Auto_Open macro to execute. The document body contains a lure instructing the user to enable macros. The XLM macros contain calls to dangerous functions, including 'RUN', indicating an attempt to execute arbitrary code. The presence of multiple URLs suggests the macro is configured to download a second-stage payload from one of these locations.

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.
  • 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.
  • 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

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
917baaae0e48794e5eb73ae3d5cf93c43110b97da5df3e45bc2f236b5551c875
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 27158 bytes