Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ba402f1e7ad994cb…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

148.0 KB Created: 2018-10-27 02:58:59 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2020-09-15
MD5: 7b233a957170da0a02112183bc9e0770 SHA-1: 56d16be528a00206b1097f84061dd3afb3b98662 SHA-256: ba402f1e7ad994cb3fa2fff703a611b9b57768feb8708737d7f94f45b6860d70
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is identified as malicious by ClamAV and contains critical heuristics indicating the presence of Excel 4.0 macros with an Auto_Open defined name. This suggests the macro sheet is designed to execute automatically upon opening the workbook, serving as a dropper for a secondary payload. The macro sheet itself contains obfuscated data, preventing a deeper analysis of its specific actions.

Heuristics 3

  • ClamAV: Xls.Dropper.Agent-9020809-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Dropper.Agent-9020809-0
  • 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.
  • 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) 89251 bytes
SHA-256: 8bd63a47b9338669a97af471f31b4b4b02f70ad747bdfda737b3f6d024491d96
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, visible -  Sheet
' 0085     12 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, visible -  DFg
' 0018     29 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -     hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00u{\xf5{1\x001\x00'
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - built-in-name 1 Auto_Open hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!V31663 
' 0018     31 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -           hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!V31669 
' 0018     31 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -           hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!V31668 
' 0018     31 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -       hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00\xe2{{|T\x00T\x00'
' 0018     29 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -         hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!V31665 
' 0018     29 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - KdrCTnu hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!V31663 
' 0018     30 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -      hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00U{\xa6{\\\x00\\\x00'
' 0018     29 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -     hidden len=11 ptgArea3d  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x00\x00b{\xc8{C\x00C\x00'
' 0018     31 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant -           hidden len=7 ptgRef3d  Sheet!V31667 
' 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, 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 LABELS
... (truncated)