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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 b140bd7e7dcfd025…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

234.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 3c959ffb8163f1a6b31d35757a98a463 SHA-1: da3f721940a549d90cfb84b9b4635aa9a0e1c53e SHA-256: b140bd7e7dcfd0256425f25c9f17607e9068ca4950bccab5599f1f3df5dc6869
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains an Auto_Open macro that uses dangerous functions, including the RUN function, indicating an attempt to execute arbitrary code. The document body displays a "Protected document" lure, instructing the user to "Enable Editing" and "Enable Content", which is a common social engineering technique to bypass security warnings and facilitate macro execution. No specific IOCs like URLs or hashes were extracted, but the presence of the Auto_Open macro and the lure strongly suggests a malicious intent to download and execute a second-stage payload.

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
85bd799d63a9c9d3e06c69962fd24c9e85f003912ae8b0607fcb74932fa77b49		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 328427 bytes

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