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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d25dfd45ca900317…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

149.0 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:17:20 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 5210348e7cc6814dc4e73e685e16c492 SHA-1: c09b9974129a0c37ae64e12b1fd41afb92fdbe47 SHA-256: d25dfd45ca90031708daea80e549c053c7b27990be1d7b791994d60f2bb4d187
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 Malicious File

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet. The presence of an 'Auto_Open' defined name and the use of dangerous formula APIs like 'RUN' indicate that the macro is designed to execute automatically upon opening. The document body's text, 'Click Enable Editing button from the yellow bar above. Once You have enabled editing, please click Enable Content button from the yellow bar above,' is a common lure to bypass security warnings and enable malicious macros. The XLM macro sheet also contains environment evasion checks, suggesting an attempt to hinder analysis.

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.
  • XLM Auto_Open environment-evasion HALT gate high OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_HALT
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes multiple GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW environment checks and halts execution when the host does not match the expected user environment. This is a common sandbox-evasion pattern in XLM malware and is stronger than a bare XLM macro-sheet indicator.
  • 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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
854a4944b0c1f1f17bb51c0feef187d7770970858dc37a8175eec68f349e7976		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 174997 bytes

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