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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c72431feea3acbc7…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

142.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2022-05-31
MD5: 496a7400e21bc4239fe4f2ecfe66f659 SHA-1: 3a9a871d394d5521d0b55de0ede08e6321e7fea2 SHA-256: c72431feea3acbc77807b792dcca767671f3b4831e068709cb65196e7a24c092
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1204.002 Malicious Link: Malicious File T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter T1059.005 Command and Scripting Interpreter: Visual Basic

The sample contains Excel 4.0 macros with an Auto_Open entry, indicating automatic execution upon opening. The document body and sheet names impersonate DocuSign, a common lure to encourage users to enable macros. The macros are designed to download a payload from one of the listed URLs, likely leading to further infection.

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.
  • 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
  • Document signing service impersonation lure medium SE_DOCUSIGN_LURE
    Document impersonates DocuSign, Adobe Sign, or a similar signing service in a signing-request context

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
fd395c0d5efe31bc3f4c13f428339dafef8132102e75fdb8cfce92015175af32
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 2730 bytes