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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d98b11f1599985cc…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

261.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: d8ed80402de2b621219044b3a2c022c5 SHA-1: e2f86c9431081da7f57cc014a9f2f7b870ea0aad SHA-256: d98b11f1599985cc16c8dd10ea53ea5a1b9ac752d5d30c460c198b4a2a83ad9b
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains an Auto_Open macro, indicating automatic execution upon opening. The document body and sheet names impersonate DocuSign, a common lure to trick users into enabling macros. The XLM macro sheet contains a reference to 'StartWdll32' and a suspicious URL 'http://../sdbybsd.fds', suggesting it is designed to download and execute a second-stage payload.

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.
  • 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
  • Document signing service impersonation lure medium SE_DOCUSIGN_LURE
    Document impersonates DocuSign, Adobe Sign, or a similar signing service in a signing-request context

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
1cce783a487c585d0f0d553a6dcc92b7a1cc8611def516623538f51ccff16f05		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 4427 bytes

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