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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 f873168107eab5a3…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

122.0 KB Created: 2009-03-21 04:44:59 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 184d84a35ae48ff8b30bff80db0b0797 SHA-1: 7c1654f154b4b64ae19994049e84cf212cb731aa SHA-256: f873168107eab5a364ff5cfa62dd98bc5bafbf5b4ab88eaf2a50eece6e31c91d
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1059.001 PowerShell

The sample is an Excel file containing Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros, indicated by the OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN and OLE_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN heuristics. The presence of an 'Auto_Open' defined name suggests an attempt to automatically execute code upon opening the workbook. The document body prompts the user to 'enable Editing and Content', a common lure for macro-enabled documents. The XLM macros themselves are not fully detailed, but the critical heuristics confirm the use of dangerous functions like RUN, indicating the macro is designed to execute arbitrary commands.

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.
  • 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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
20547f8720c3a2c78bf61a6bb2986a96d5c7fcb4e7b931a8e70915bf1e11abfd
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 59662 bytes