Malicious Office (OOXML) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 60ef890d93dd9257…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML)

154.3 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 16.0300 First seen: 2021-07-02
MD5: 27afd3cad0af041319da0785152d6685 SHA-1: 357b33d0b5b467989ca396d48e1ecaff06285dad SHA-256: 60ef890d93dd9257cc04fa7b9f90ffe4371b32ae099f72868b681bc70d700835
182 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, which are known to be used for malicious purposes. These macros reconstruct and access URLs that likely host a second-stage payload. The primary intent appears to be downloading and executing further malicious content from the identified URLs.

Heuristics 4

  • Excel 4.0 macro sheet (1 sheet(s)) critical 2 related findings 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 (2 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), inside an embedded HTA that uses VBScript Chr()/&-concat obfuscation, or split across multi-char fragment cells a download formula concatenates by reference (=A1&A2&… / CONCATENATE(...)). 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/shared-string cells in row-major and column-major order plus FORMULA cell-reference concatenation in token 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://ssmdevelopers.in/4RaxIGAPtfPM/yu.html Referenced by macro
    • https://ramblerimport.com/hz4UhluT5au/yu.htmlReferenced by macro

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/intlsheet1.bin 114422 bytes
SHA-256: 75671d724d6899f82f10be918456f4b8569f54253b0a4110770ac348ebb331f6
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
�  �  �   @      ��������    �              I   �  %      ��                  & �  �             @   d           � $                                    �  �  %      ��    & �  I     ,     �  <     /   I         < 0   6   I         < 7   �?  I         �  �  %      ��    &           ,            6                                                                                               	         
                             
                                                                                                                                                                                                       !         "         #       %      ��    &           ,            6                                                                                               	         
                             
                                                                                                                                                                                                       !         "         #       %      ��    &           ,            6                                                                                               	         
                             
                                                                                                                                                                                                     %      ��    &           ,            6                                                                                               	         
                             
                                                                                                                                                                                                       4           %      ��    &           ,            6                                                                                               	         
                             
                                                                                                                                                                                                       4           %      ��    &           ,            6                                                                                               	         
                             
                                                                                                                                                                                                       6       %      ��    &           ,            6                                                                                               	         
                             
                                                                                                                                                                                                      � 4       -   h t t p s : / / s s m d e v e l o p e r s . i n / 4 R a x I G A P t f P M / y u . h t m l   ]    - h t t p s : / / s s m d e v e l o p e r s . i n / 4 R a x I G A P t f P M / y u . h t m l     %      ��    &           ,            6                                                                                               	         
                             
                                                                                                                                                                                                      � 4       -   h t t p s : / / r a m b l e r i m p o r t . c o m / h z 4 U h l u T 5 a u / y u . h t m l   ]    - h t t p s : / / r a m b l e r i m p o r t . c o m / h z 4 U h l u T 5 a u / y u . h t m l     %      ��    &           ,            6                                                                                               	         
                             
                                                                                                                                                                              
... (truncated)