Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis — malicious · d74a3f748a14120a

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

42.0 KB Created: 2020-11-12 14:55:57 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel

MD5: abb4dbc2eea09f23d78d8ba91a9e11db SHA-1: 0444e12faba882d8153c9efd4f42bf9c98467819 SHA-256: d74a3f748a14120a55c66d8d00b37476f3e78a60cf44776959f6134b4e390d25

140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK

T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet. Heuristics indicate the presence of an Auto_Open macro and the use of dangerous formula APIs, specifically the RUN function. This suggests the macro is designed to execute arbitrary commands. While the specific command executed by RUN is not fully recoverable from the provided evidence, its presence strongly indicates a downloader or initial execution stage for a malicious 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.

Filename	Kind	Source	Size
`xlm_macros.txt` `ea316922b91702cb2a79d72cc7daece6c6be08472b66e68a1cdfe2537d71eff1`	xlm-macro	oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing)	10080 bytes

Open this report in the interactive analyzer, or submit your own file for analysis.