Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 dee859920efe084d…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

36.0 KB Created: 2020-11-27 11:41:57 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: d75651ae3fbdbe217dfa2987fd54428a SHA-1: 6c469a60c759854d2e67287c9dd4490a086e5982 SHA-256: dee859920efe084ddf9a27836d7deecbf31e8148bc439263da378e1a193e63a6
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet containing an Auto_Open entry, which is a critical finding indicating automatic execution upon opening. The presence of dangerous formula APIs like RUN suggests the macro is designed to execute arbitrary code, likely downloading a second-stage payload. No specific family could be identified, but the technique is common for initial payload delivery.

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
d57c710d5dc5eea8edff067c2a8ca954991cac286bbe95e7ad7a2e847f26a288		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6741 bytes

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