Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d2ebd5600bc9efd5…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

36.0 KB Created: 2020-11-27 11:47:43 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 89aaa0738d689ab274cd90b71516e5f8 SHA-1: e68ee181e548f018d3741afdf3e011381f91c8af SHA-256: d2ebd5600bc9efd5a803a64f27b311f04dd8037ba5640215611edb04a7ef73eb
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open defined name, which is a critical finding indicating potential malicious execution. The presence of dangerous formula APIs like RUN further supports this. The macro sheet itself contains obfuscated data, suggesting an attempt to hide its true functionality, likely to download and execute a second-stage payload.

Heuristics 3

  • 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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
bef59ac13c3bb47cf498d95cf65b661b56c0cf0df492e75928c9dc462220f1c8		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6709 bytes

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