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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4e74091dc4f0ccff…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

73.2 KB Created: 2021-10-27 10:31:49 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 12.0000
MD5: 94de794b3efbfe346ed133eb36744d6d SHA-1: 6ef9c58e439b92766152ebaa0e2d95ffefab0622 SHA-256: 4e74091dc4f0ccffb2dfd184aaeaa35d904e37149049ead57fa6c355833cebfc
182 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, which are known to be used for malicious purposes. The macros contain strings like 'URLDownloadToFileA' and 'DownloadToFileA', indicating an intent to download a second-stage payload. The reconstructed path 'C:\ProgramData\PssdwilRlgGgd' suggests where the downloaded file might be saved. The embedded URLs, although currently flagged as benign, are part of the download mechanism.

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. 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.
  • URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (3 URLs) critical OOXML_XLM_CELL_ARRAY_URL
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet stages its payload URL across individual numeric cells (one ASCII charcode per cell) or inside an embedded HTA that uses VBScript Chr()/&-concat obfuscation. The reconstructed URL is invisible to literal-bytes URL extraction because it is never contiguous in the workbook stream. URLs were recovered by walking the BIFF12 record stream of every worksheet and macrosheet part and decoding RK/inline-string cells in both row-major and column-major order.
  • 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 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/911249881849536584/912356058922614854/CVjrWfYwLXUpshekniggagook.flac
    • https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/911249881849536584/912356063758675998/GjEdowscAmeMpshekniggagook.flac
    • https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/911249881849536584/912356067688714250/cvVactCffEgjaSvpshekniggagook.flac

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
9eba223397563bc92b1777d43d01d37bb86f3c4132401b2c27cfc655f54cf140
xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/sheet1.bin 4971 bytes