Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a6cb16fdc65f2de7…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

147.5 KB Created: 2006-12-01 05:41:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2020-07-24
MD5: daa927499f18e9d2164a0e7afc3bc237 SHA-1: 6edb52bd4b2558a41e4307b74b22061ce183c06e SHA-256: a6cb16fdc65f2de700274e9cc9b227a5f07b70346aa2ad46eaffedbca5d9224f
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 a known method for executing malicious code upon opening the document. The macro sheet itself is large and contains numerous labels, suggesting complex macro logic. The document body is filled with seemingly random strings, which could be obfuscation or part of the macro's execution. The primary attack vector is likely spearphishing, with the macro serving as the execution mechanism.

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) 92420 bytes
SHA-256: 7523ffe05bb476e60d5d0577fd5db3697809b766f47131b29721288d341a0a61
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, visible -  Sheet
' 0085     16 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, visible -  zoJPAUM
' 0018     29 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -     hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00t\xf7\xd7\xf7\x94\x00\x94\x00'
' 0018     32 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -            hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!EO63280 
' 0018     27 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - AOUYK hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!EO63276 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - built-in-name 1 Auto_Open hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!EO63276 
' 0018     29 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -     hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00\xe2\xf6\\\xf7\x92\x00\x92\x00'
' 0018     28 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -        hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!EO63282 
' 0018     30 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -      hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00|\xf7\xcd\xf7f\x00f\x00'
' 0018     29 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -     hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00!\xf7\xb2\xf7m\x00m\x00'
' 0018     31 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -           hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!EO63281 
' 0018     29 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -         hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!EO63278 
' 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 : Cell Value, St
... (truncated)