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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c09a0561d163dab6…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

241.0 KB Created: 2020-04-17 06:37:08 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-04-13
MD5: 82723277df51f626fa116f597d4a03ba SHA-1: 516752f34a828657adacd52123afb38325a8d750 SHA-256: c09a0561d163dab6c5937f7d82b5493daa24ec2497b8a87f2519a054ca155a13
142 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name, which is a critical indicator of malicious intent. The macro utilizes dangerous formula APIs, including the RUN function, suggesting it's designed to execute arbitrary commands. While no specific URLs or further payloads were extracted, the presence of the Auto_Open macro strongly indicates a delivery mechanism for malicious code.

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.
  • 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.
  • 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://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    • http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    • http://ns.microsoft.com/photo/1.0/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
7cb5effa8dac4de0278cb9b7315982e9e7027f8d43482d8c9a5d286b986bd8fa		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 140278 bytes

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