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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c29ae3440fdedb73…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

53.5 KB Created: 2025-09-26 11:33:59 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: bc0af2a0c2c42bd2ed7f6bdaf0b923a0 SHA-1: 5fe217e9cf6aec139f64f759da3de19839607989 SHA-256: c29ae3440fdedb73695e61c3b63cc272ead3850f4cb7d3c04599cd2531829eb8
340 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.003 Windows Command Shell T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is an Excel XLS file containing VBA macros. The critical heuristics indicate the use of WScript.Shell and a Shell() call within a Workbook_Open auto-exec macro. This strongly suggests the macro is designed to execute arbitrary commands, likely to download and run a second-stage payload. No specific family could be identified from the available evidence.

Heuristics 8

  • Shell() call in VBA critical OLE_VBA_SHELL
    Shell() call in VBA
  • WScript.Shell usage critical OLE_VBA_WSCRIPT
    WScript.Shell usage
  • Reference to Windows Script Host high SC_STR_WSCRIPT
    Reference to Windows Script Host
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject call
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Compiled VBA/cache stream contains an auto-execution token together with shell/download/object-execution tokens. This catches p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where visible source is unavailable.
  • Suspicious extracted artifact high EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.
  • VBA macros detected medium OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains VBA macro code

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
aa6c080a6cce0595a0838e5c6cacea2e366620c238fdfde911021e021a16cb22		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 27560 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 2 shell/COM execution token(s). Carved macro source contains an auto-exec entry point and execution/download terms.

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