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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 e16d93a7c6559711…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

480.5 KB Created: 2010-09-15 08:04:06 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 884612de8ca300b4787f2ff918150630 SHA-1: 7dd8c2bda7585bd6817ae0fba5d97638c648a4ef SHA-256: e16d93a7c6559711cf6a0e0a84bd6b430ec9388bd42295a1eb9b0ba072f4dd6e
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The file contains critical heuristic firings indicating the presence of legacy Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro that utilizes dangerous formula APIs like RUN. The presence of 'XF.Classic', 'Poppy by VicodinES', and 'The Narkotic Network' in the extracted text suggests this is a known variant of an older Excel macro virus. The macro sheet is named 'XL4Poppy' and attempts to infect 'Book1.xls' in the Excel startup directory, indicating a likely delivery mechanism for further malicious activity.

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.
  • Legacy Excel formula macro virus marker critical OLE_XLS_FORMULA_MACRO_VIRUS
    Workbook stream contains self-identifying legacy Excel formula macro virus markers. This indicates the document carries formula macro virus content even when no VBA project or modern XLM macro-sheet structure is present.
  • 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
3260ec05637a6304cd8ed7a7dcff2c15c83fbd44fb20c6ea87c294b65106d912		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 200994 bytes

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