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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 424ece4876413abb…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

24.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 14.0300
MD5: 9e27642f2ec6e00d3142aa58b473d18c SHA-1: 87bad7c45539c6c7dc39e191aab0c1c405b61f6a SHA-256: 424ece4876413abbfdef9d643b31fc2dd9168e0ea1a7f32bc854f13c3a400a8d
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file contains an Excel 4.0 macro sheet that utilizes WinAPI functions such as URLDownloadToFileA, DownloadToFileA, and ShellExecuteA. This indicates the macro is designed to download and execute a secondary payload from a remote source. The presence of these functions strongly suggests an attempt to download and run an executable file, likely for malicious purposes.

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.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
99a6a52acb8f5c734f6d86faf89e0637a94ac99f953aa583d2658b47d2e1f9b9
xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/sheet1.bin 194023 bytes