Malicious Office (OLE) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 f96b69e9dc904192…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE)

36.0 KB Created: 2020-11-25 10:26:53 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: b0d20c604cebebeec0dea7fc3b6071de SHA-1: 3f5913bf7b49b25a31a4fecea4948647b9b670c4 SHA-256: f96b69e9dc90419291e2aeb463dab2423bfcf3a14c540fad4aff481611a529f9
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The file is an Excel document containing Excel 4.0 (XLM) macros, indicated by the OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN and OLE_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN heuristics. The Auto_Open macro is configured to execute, and the presence of dangerous formula APIs suggests it's designed to run arbitrary code. This is a common technique for downloading and executing further malicious content.

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
809afae43dcb0d5945c92c2c9bcd97425610365cf1fe02dc1402d51cfcda66e2		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 6483 bytes

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