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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 f40bd7fcec5745ec…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

105.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: a347dc8aa739357b873d78d3f8ce6faa SHA-1: 8bd7919f4bb91697e9e2eccc30f53229026f5209 SHA-256: f40bd7fcec5745ecbe463b8854854b5de6f6b770548fd9f24b864a93a14633c9
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.002 Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains an Auto_Open macro, indicating automatic execution upon opening. The document body and heuristics suggest a lure to impersonate DocuSign to trick the user into enabling macros. The extracted URLs are likely used to download a second-stage payload, and the presence of 'rundll32.exe' and 'DllRegisterServer' suggests dynamic-link library registration, a common technique for malware execution.

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.
  • 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
  • Document signing service impersonation lure medium SE_DOCUSIGN_LURE
    Document impersonates DocuSign, Adobe Sign, or a similar signing service in a signing-request context

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
1f3a9e9f425000bccc6ecbbba5371f1a3b0a17ea072b52992d451728caf3ab45		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 3742 bytes

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