Office (OOXML) / .XLSX malware analysis — malicious · 1524c5785bc9fce4

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

24.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 14.0300

MD5: 54e6d5f08d64400d1d6490db2864f7bc SHA-1: 5de23be933f03a5a74ff62fc3e3c451b532354f0 SHA-256: 1524c5785bc9fce4819617ed5c64e6d77cdcebd06d2e78feacb38f139d99c116

120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK

T1059.005 Visual Basic T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer T1204.002 Malicious File

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet, identified by critical heuristics indicating the presence of WinAPI and download strings. The macros likely leverage functions such as URLDownloadToFileA and ShellExecuteA to download and execute a secondary payload, a common technique for initial access and malware delivery. The specific family is not identifiable from the provided evidence.

Heuristics 2

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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

Filename	Kind	Source	Size
`xlm_sheet_00.bin` `99a6a52acb8f5c734f6d86faf89e0637a94ac99f953aa583d2658b47d2e1f9b9`	xlm-macrosheet	OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/sheet1.bin	194023 bytes

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