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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a84bdee113e0d2ca…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

146.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 4562e3b8ee4abf0d7edd913794b743cd SHA-1: dc259d1c24cdab38d70a302c741339eb2d3cdab0 SHA-256: a84bdee113e0d2caf0c53c2ca0cd39202274562f09cd7c2d4773a89551356daf
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet that contains an Auto_Open macro, which is a known technique for executing malicious code upon opening the document. The document body displays a protection message, instructing the user to 'Enable Editing' and 'Enable Content', a common lure for macro-enabled malicious documents. The presence of environment evasion and a HALT gate in the XLM macro suggests an attempt to prevent analysis.

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.
  • XLM Auto_Open environment-evasion HALT gate high OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_HALT
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes multiple GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW environment checks and halts execution when the host does not match the expected user environment. This is a common sandbox-evasion pattern in XLM malware and is stronger than a bare XLM macro-sheet indicator.
  • 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
98bc488a0dc7e0bcf14e267dcd7cf6ed7400af50091972a5568f23514c58b8f0		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 172732 bytes

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