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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 af3624cd37820cb6…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

954.0 KB Created: 2020-06-30 14:47:25 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: c8429f36d92170a3f0b54748cdd7734b SHA-1: 30e83bab148dd525d52d3111895a200f8ba41462 SHA-256: af3624cd37820cb6ec0734daf4e237002b0d81c0ad30f429045be03a4570b502
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.002 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File T1059.005 PowerShell

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet (XLM) that contains an Auto_Open macro, indicated by the OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN heuristic. The document body contains a lure instructing the user to enable editing and content, which is a common technique to bypass macro security. The XLM macro sheet also exhibits environment evasion techniques. While the specific payload is not detailed, the presence of an Auto_Open macro and the user-enablement lure strongly suggest a malicious intent to execute arbitrary code upon opening.

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 environment-evasion close gate critical OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_CLOSE
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes environment checks with GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW, then shows a fake corruption/error message and closes the workbook when the host fails those checks. This is a malware sandbox-evasion pattern, even when the later payload stage is hidden behind obfuscated defined-name flow.
  • 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
0d3983a0f94924c2589bc895cd8d1ccf3bbc19cd8d99a306e64064b1b95d7485		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 105174 bytes

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