Office (OOXML) / .XLSX malware analysis — malicious · 168bce532d4cc1a7

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

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

MD5: d63be083e0818f5e9c901c3d695f1729 SHA-1: 5a15d7a8fcab23375113b48f7b7d55c034667235 SHA-256: 168bce532d4cc1a7d1dce7ce22185a7abb75d0ce3da53b39e2fa0e25417bdd42

120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK

T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, indicated by the OOXML_XLM_MACROSHEET heuristic. The OOXML_XLM_BINARY_WINAPI_STRINGS heuristic reveals WinAPI functions like URLDownloadToFileA and ShellExecuteA, suggesting the macro's purpose is to download and execute a secondary payload. The presence of these functions and the file type strongly indicate a macro-based downloader.

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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