Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a9c026878867960d…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

36.0 KB Created: 2020-11-27 11:44:38 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2021-05-22
MD5: 99b6ba5d222b6d20f6048c833e691a52 SHA-1: 15c7de2631ff65910d3594a668c05d1560b50eb1 SHA-256: a9c026878867960dbea8943b90f5954a0c78a6c8398767bccdb37bc53c8a1e63
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

This Excel 4.0 macro sheet contains an Auto_Open function, which is a critical finding indicating automatic execution upon opening the workbook. The presence of dangerous formula APIs like RUN suggests the macro is designed to execute arbitrary commands, likely to download and run a second-stage payload. No specific family could be identified, but the technique is common for initial execution.

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) 6984 bytes
SHA-256: b5b90b559c37b1b3e42fe802f44a933a92ac37c8cb682bc9117459e2642537cc
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, visible -  Sheet
' 0085     20 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, visible -  PHZlvulAuUR
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - built-in-name 1 Auto_Open len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!E138 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - bPESOKYI len=0 
' 0018     24 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - BpksyDOna len=0 
' 0018     27 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - cRUaJZGouGck len=0 
' 0018     26 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - cRxcAEygOlJ len=0 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - GGTWvIFg len=0 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - HsgDaPtG len=0 
' 0018     25 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - LQsgXUAMLW len=0 
' 0018     26 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - lTrtHlDcPwl len=0 
' 0018     26 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - oggQgwBYiNX len=0 
' 0018     27 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - PkZvzIwfkpBD len=0 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - poKYJggk len=0 
' 0018     26 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - qfiWlhyWaya len=0 
' 0018     24 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - RBYKHSKMS len=0 
' 0018     20 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - TtGTk len=0 
' 0018     24 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - uzxgjeCAv len=0 
' 0018     27 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - WeIlnJYdcIIy len=0 
' 0018     26 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - wizvDWQCfxk len=0 
' 0018     26 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - wQQUHMeXJPL len=0 
' 0018     26 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - XffdVukclGg len=0 
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - XRRHsEIo 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, S
... (truncated)

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