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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 bc3b9fe6aba7a66a…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

62.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 2570b530b141a8af2945d8adb9854502 SHA-1: ebc1915fc9f0f613ee50e9206de70ff79d6c2e7d SHA-256: bc3b9fe6aba7a66abb614fb27cf9b69be05290dc6347e9a116068ed3b1de57e0
240 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.004 Scripting: PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File: User Execution: Malicious Link T1059.001 PowerShell T1059.003 Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell

The file is an Excel spreadsheet containing both XLM and VBA macros. The presence of Workbook_Open and Auto_Open macros, along with references to ShellExecute and URLDownloadToFile, indicates malicious intent. The document body and embedded URLs suggest a lure to download a payload from 'tak-tik.site'. The XLM macros specifically use dangerous functions like RUN, further increasing the risk. The primary attack pattern involves social engineering to enable macros, followed by the execution of downloaded malware.

Heuristics 8

  • Reference to URLDownloadToFile API critical SC_STR_URLDOWNLOAD
    Reference to URLDownloadToFile API
  • Reference to ShellExecute API high SC_STR_SHELLEXEC
    Reference to ShellExecute API
  • XLM Auto_Open with dangerous formula APIs high 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.
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • 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.
  • VBA macros detected medium OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains VBA macro code
  • 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
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL http://tak-tik.site/crun20.gif�
    • http://tak-tik.site/crun20.gif

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
d4222e1ad83b892546402a65bce1342319760d5f0e17d0c73ae5f07e792beb86
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 9447 bytes
macros.bas
c29faf2da8b6b84c63880f8f3ff09f138acdaa94ad9406cab75b546ae0e54428
vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 979 bytes