Malicious Office (OOXML) / .XLSX — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 015d09fb88aab010…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

67.4 KB Created: 2021-10-27 10:31:49 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 12.0000
MD5: 7664270bc87d7d2f52cedb41b8c9e29e SHA-1: b480173002afe29e7f21ee5958d8b821f3ff4e48 SHA-256: 015d09fb88aab01099d2aa61c8916bd3815e424b74b46022e004c398886ef739
242 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample contains Excel 4.0 macros that leverage WinAPI functions like URLDownloadToFileA to download a file. The macro attempts to execute 'mshta C:\ProgramData\eBHgecViWED.rtf', indicating it's designed to download and run a secondary payload. The primary IOC is the URL used for downloading the payload.

Heuristics 5

  • Excel 4.0 macro sheet (1 sheet(s)) critical OOXML_XLM_MACROSHEET
    Spreadsheet contains an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro sheet — XLM was a major Office malware vector during 2020-2022 and evaded many VBA-focused controls before Microsoft tightened XLM defaults. Even legitimate XLM use is rare in modern workbooks. The macro sheet is stored as XLSB/BIFF12 binary content, which many XML-only OOXML scanners miss.
  • Binary XLM macro sheet with WinAPI/download strings critical OOXML_XLM_BINARY_WINAPI_STRINGS
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet is stored as BIFF12/XLSB binary data and contains Win32 download or process-execution API strings such as URLDownloadToFileA, ShellExecuteA, or CreateDirectoryA. These strings are high-signal in XLM macro sheets and catch payload-download macros that XML-formula scanners cannot parse.
  • XLM payload reassembled from CHAR()/split formulas critical OOXML_XLM_REASSEMBLED_PAYLOAD
    An Excel 4.0 macro sheet builds its payload inside the formula token stream by concatenating per-character CHAR() calls and string fragments, so no WinAPI name, shell command, or URL is ever contiguous in the .bin for a literal-bytes scan to find. Reassembling the formulas recovered download/execute API names, LOLBin commands (regsvr32/rundll32/mshta/wmic/powershell), or a payload URL — the de-obfuscated download-and-run kill chain.
  • URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (3 URLs) critical OOXML_XLM_CELL_ARRAY_URL
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet stages its payload URL across individual numeric cells (one ASCII charcode per cell) or inside an embedded HTA that uses VBScript Chr()/&-concat obfuscation. The reconstructed URL is invisible to literal-bytes URL extraction because it is never contiguous in the workbook stream. URLs were recovered by walking the BIFF12 record stream of every worksheet and macrosheet part and decoding RK/inline-string cells in both row-major and column-major order.
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL http://139.59.64.195:8080/PJ3ZQWVJPYCYDCA9A6Q2Y6YAC
    • https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/911249881849536584/912356067688714250/cvVactCffEgjaSvpshekniggagook.flac
    • https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/911249881849536584/912356058922614854/CVjrWfYwLXUpshekniggagook.flac
    • https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/911249881849536584/912356063758675998/GjEdowscAmeMpshekniggagook.flac

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
e80680e402a4e02a269a9ac132e3e67d55e220a1eeb4550c34a2c3a98f86363e		 xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/sheet1.bin 5337 bytes

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