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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d5d16707065d2d2a…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

130.5 KB Created: 2017-06-16 00:20:59 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 9f57ca013a177680af9c1fc66e3c3537 SHA-1: 4009425bc0145b664ae965056186cb6525a1b4e4 SHA-256: d5d16707065d2d2a04412f9edb7771ee119d82751b60ce1902bf0f8a53c8b89f
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet. Critical heuristics indicate the presence of an Auto_Open macro and the use of dangerous formula APIs, specifically the RUN function. The document body contains a lure to "Enable Editing" and "Enable Content", which is a common social engineering tactic to bypass security warnings and execute embedded macros. No specific IOCs like URLs or hashes were extracted, but the presence of the Auto_Open macro and the social engineering lure strongly suggest malicious intent.

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
8be5f87649cf5af1ddce52b8e0f3261b7a1eff52fc925fc83306e77083751fb9
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 80513 bytes