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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c2f2f8bc55c665b6…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

44.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: d540e2e51abc9a33256ee013f1f29b0d SHA-1: 98783d22c8ef1cb97d7235a5576d03f268f3dbd0 SHA-256: c2f2f8bc55c665b601a2e72b6a9d3506b56d14726009c7959987e8c68f0c8d83
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet. Heuristics indicate the presence of an Auto_Open function that utilizes dangerous formula APIs and includes environment evasion checks. This suggests the macro is designed to execute malicious code upon opening, likely to download and run a second-stage payload. The document body contains obfuscated text, which is typical for lures in macro-based attacks.

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
e6216aff5fbc1cfb93cdd05607aa54e1997ab13f26ec7d6068e24982dc9e0a80		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 13454 bytes

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