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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ab58530e8fc75e60…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

41.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 334f0eeed6399e9b916e3e569bb52d4d SHA-1: 431611a5d21995e78e0470a03ecde96faaf47340 SHA-256: ab58530e8fc75e60da545106dec8489a7ac7eeb49ce6b2483bcb16b0bb8debc7
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell T1059.003 Windows Command Shell

The sample is an Excel file containing Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro. The critical heuristics indicate the presence of dangerous formula APIs, including the RUN function, which is commonly used to execute arbitrary commands. The macro sheet itself is heavily obfuscated, but the presence of the Auto_Open entry and the use of the RUN function strongly suggest the intent is to download and execute a second-stage payload.

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
e8afc71fde888696ad17c8e1b896a0e028ffce2a1566878025de34bf53943f8c
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 8056 bytes