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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 cf76496cc7ee9353…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

275.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 0ffd4266486c943925a7cf47c16121e7 SHA-1: 46ffe12aaf17f908c58bf1374553523dbbe84041 SHA-256: cf76496cc7ee935321e89efb930c8ad4d6c7cdccfcf03af1ed9cd57f4f6f4a4e
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel file containing Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros, indicated by the OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN and OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN_DEFINEDNAME heuristics. It uses a lure to trick the user into enabling macros, impersonating a document signing service. The extracted URL is likely used to download a second-stage payload. The XLM macros are the primary mechanism for execution.

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.
  • 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
  • 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://www.lincolnschallenge.org/netrdr.dll

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
101c72bb4967734e65d760a20b29c990b5d31cbcd482088257aaf09427470ace
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 3252 bytes