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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c700a984c22eb551…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

180.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 190369030ba71fbb14c3fc630c897593 SHA-1: 069f227341ff38c8d8a84037db8a8f0823f6dc86 SHA-256: c700a984c22eb5511401f8b9913c0e40f3b29005f3951433983f2356187ff9bd
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, which is a critical finding. The macro uses dangerous functions like RUN, indicating it's designed to execute arbitrary code. The presence of a 'Macro/content-enable lure' heuristic further suggests the document attempts to trick the user into enabling macros. The extracted URLs are likely part of the payload delivery mechanism. The macro's intent is to download and execute a second-stage payload from the embedded URLs.

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.
  • Macro/content-enable lure medium SE_ENABLE_LURE
    Document instructs the user to enable macros or editing — a common technique used by malware droppers to bypass Office macro security settings

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
917baaae0e48794e5eb73ae3d5cf93c43110b97da5df3e45bc2f236b5551c875
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 27158 bytes