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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 604de92585e96fd8…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

291.1 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 14.0300
MD5: 29afad5267a450a69dd4713c465d5cb5 SHA-1: 119763b49d911667b2d58d0a7826d15774458c23 SHA-256: 604de92585e96fd817d773a3a6722573a91e1299bc02ed26d77992209c9f8bcc
242 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, identified by critical heuristics indicating WinAPI and download strings. The macros are designed to reassemble a payload from CHAR() and split formulas, ultimately downloading a GIF file from 'http://thebusinessfame.com/ds/121120.gif'. This downloaded content is likely a second-stage executable, given the presence of strings like DownloadToFileA and ShellExecuteA within the macro sheet.

Heuristics 5

  • 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.
  • 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 (1 URL) 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 http://thebusinessfame.com/ds/121120.gif

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
5150fab975c87f2572a5dc9b54081b4f497e94e55f6daa1a649d3b045d83aa0d		 xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/intlsheet1.bin 197223 bytes

Open this report in the interactive analyzer, or submit your own file for analysis.