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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 dea92caf0ff5743f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

180.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: b7fdad6f5c4088e83a5254c5b3ee3df1 SHA-1: 7cef2872afbbf639512faabf9fea77bbae000d6b SHA-256: dea92caf0ff5743f327968f9db51828c3063df030d38b9c2a9405d95fce11206
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 spreadsheet containing an Auto_Open macro, a known technique for executing malicious code upon opening. The macro likely attempts to download and execute a second-stage payload from one of the listed URLs. The presence of an 'enable lure' heuristic further supports the malicious intent by indicating the document prompts the user to enable macros.

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.
  • 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.
  • 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
917baaae0e48794e5eb73ae3d5cf93c43110b97da5df3e45bc2f236b5551c875
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 27158 bytes