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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ca1cc12117c58d28…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

373.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: e115841d97ca1130e869c7a0ebdeee0e SHA-1: db7bb3a417203542fbec1b70c3b2f89012239bb5 SHA-256: ca1cc12117c58d2866d743cb0dce03d70a97d7b0e87582f71b6bd5b09e96b208
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, indicated by multiple critical heuristic firings. The presence of a macro-enable lure and the use of dangerous formula APIs like RUN suggest the macro is designed to execute arbitrary code. The extracted URLs are likely used to download and execute a second-stage payload, although the exact nature of the payload cannot be determined from the provided evidence.

Heuristics 5

  • 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
  • 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 https://techserve4u.com/utlqwePl9XKr/alex.html
    • https://evershinesoftware.com/isei5Q7KlsQ5/alex.html

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
599707db4356dee9b1659b3a18ea6968bd26a6e750ede458308d788c900c5e21
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 5292 bytes