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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 232000d47fdcf3aa…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSM

105.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 14.0300
MD5: 8918ba9c0fe2f53c23b4c9c8e684c899 SHA-1: c6a0e1a936c9f0946ce5e0b1fd28bd47a281a81f SHA-256: 232000d47fdcf3aa3b65d1aaba83d4a7df47deda68a919205d475dd59f9df2d7
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic for Applications T1204.002 Malicious File

This Excel 4.0 macro-enabled document (XLSM) contains critical heuristic firings indicating the use of dangerous functions like CALL and EXEC. These functions are used to directly call Win32 APIs, enabling the execution of arbitrary code. The document body contains a list of URLs, suggesting the macro's intent is to download and execute a second-stage payload from one of these locations. The specific URLs point to potential payload delivery sites.

Heuristics 4

  • 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.
  • Excel 4.0 Auto_Open defined name critical OOXML_XLM_AUTOOPEN_DEFINEDNAME
    Workbook defines _xlnm.Auto_Open or _xlnm.Auto_Close while containing an XLM macro sheet. This is the OOXML/XLSB auto-execution shape for Excel 4.0 macros.
  • Dangerous XLM formula APIs: CALL, EXEC, FORMULA.FILL, HALT critical OOXML_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet uses formula APIs that call directly into Win32 (=CALL/=EXEC/=REGISTER/=FORMULA). These are the primitives used to download payloads, write files, and start processes from an XLM macro without invoking VBA.
  • 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://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/excel/2006/main
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/spreadsheetml/2009/9/ac

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.xml
1ac8164566eb69dad25e2fb55eafdc9b2a3eac004a1f0cc291930400a77c99df
xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/intlsheet1.xml 230169 bytes