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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 fe566a1a80377c83…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

959.5 KB Created: 2020-06-30 14:47:25 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 09ee4b57ee88b6bcaa5e06b75cc03467 SHA-1: 910554822e540400617c647dc209bae792dc34df SHA-256: fe566a1a80377c83d265df10ad45292a91a2d1a4c91a24f3082b09377f24d4ea
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.002 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File T1059.005 PowerShell

The sample is an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro-enabled spreadsheet. It contains an Auto_Open macro, a common technique for automatic execution upon opening. The document body contains a lure instructing the user to 'enable editing and content', disguised as a Cloudflare protection message, which is a typical social engineering tactic to bypass macro security. The presence of an Auto_Open macro and the user-enablement lure strongly suggest this file is designed to execute malicious code upon opening.

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.
  • XLM Auto_Open environment-evasion close gate critical OLE_XLM_ENVIRONMENT_EVASION_CLOSE
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet auto-executes environment checks with GET.WORKSPACE / GET.WINDOW, then shows a fake corruption/error message and closes the workbook when the host fails those checks. This is a malware sandbox-evasion pattern, even when the later payload stage is hidden behind obfuscated defined-name flow.
  • 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
515e6215b11f89b5028f1eb9c5ad607ad8584d886f63b7aa5b5527fd1f9430d2		 xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 110707 bytes

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