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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 5bc5423bc03b1ed1…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

64.0 KB Created: 2021-10-27 10:31:49 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 12.0000
MD5: 3ee647de76218f526c8d2cf6e55433ed SHA-1: 36c680b9d83291963635827b1c969461ae0e6cb2 SHA-256: 5bc5423bc03b1ed15e20a8e6e205bb1501f5793360eeb591994c0b3c30409a8d
182 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample contains Excel 4.0 macros that are designed to download and execute a file named 'fnsfunsfgrgnkjfsgnd.rtf' using mshta. The URLs for the download are hosted on Discord. This indicates a macro-based downloader attempting to fetch and run a second-stage payload.

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.
  • XLM payload reassembled from CHAR()/split formulas critical OOXML_XLM_REASSEMBLED_PAYLOAD
    An Excel 4.0 macro sheet builds its payload inside the formula token stream by concatenating per-character CHAR() calls and string fragments, so no WinAPI name, shell command, or URL is ever contiguous in the .bin for a literal-bytes scan to find. Reassembling the formulas recovered download/execute API names, LOLBin commands (regsvr32/rundll32/mshta/wmic/powershell), or a payload URL — the de-obfuscated download-and-run kill chain.
  • 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/908714245779247107/909805740242370610/fLHEpkpJgDOZQaRkilljews.mkv
    • https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/908714245779247107/909804941990826014/CIqWfPBeqkilljews.mkv
    • https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/908714245779247107/909805386377347103/UIWIJvZkilljews.mkv

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
e3fdd4c4fa9937ba9cce400ec610be9cf0f26c07b466927a7ecd8834b888a9c8
xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/sheet1.bin 4440 bytes