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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c44e8ec8af892658…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

139.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 7275899cd501d1ff9cc8a8ca18b24a1e SHA-1: b1106fb527d98cde9b5f5bacb0c7ded175b22d27 SHA-256: c44e8ec8af8926582495d5568b81a4178dd9fd1aed41208544aedd203e5fbbaf
262 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Service Execution: Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File Execution: Malicious File

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro that executes dangerous functions. The macros reconstruct and attempt to download payloads from five distinct URLs. The ClamAV detection and the presence of an Auto_Open macro with dangerous functions strongly indicate a downloader, likely for Emotet given the ClamAV signature.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (5 URLs) critical OLE_XLM_CELL_ARRAY_URL
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet stages its payload URL across the BIFF8 Shared String Table (one quoted-char SST entry concatenated with & at runtime) or across individual numeric cells (one ASCII charcode per cell). The reconstructed URL is invisible to literal-bytes URL extraction because it is never contiguous in the workbook stream. URLs were recovered by walking the BIFF8 record stream and decoding SST entries plus LABELSST/RK/NUMBER cells.
  • ClamAV: Doc.Downloader.EmotetRed02222-9938635-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.EmotetRed02222-9938635-0
  • 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://thangnhomlocphat.com/lhwn3i_malware/F5V/
    • http://mail.skgevents.com/wp-includes/hRMV3zxexKv5RV/
    • http://b-lubisi-motivational-speaker.com/wp-admin/WRsbnGckV0NGkx8jd/
    • https://disruptia.io/licenses/8UFMms/
    • http://sellin.app/wp-admin/isE7aHKfDlS/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
f459bbc7010b3c85969ff63ef843cbb5e7e74898bddba8eda2f959641ace8b9e
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6401 bytes