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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 63943e1477d49e17…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

24.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 14.0300
MD5: f9ee27ebb81c23c760426d49038d97b2 SHA-1: 63df9e0c1f01b5176b89638c2d53b2fd286f5139 SHA-256: 63943e1477d49e176c30719d2fb31103eed4a1536e2bbab4620d07be337b10bc
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is an Excel 4.0 macro sheet, indicated by the OOXML_XLM_MACROSHEET heuristic. The OOXML_XLM_BINARY_WINAPI_STRINGS heuristic reveals strings like URLDownloadToFileA, DownloadToFileA, and ShellExecuteA, suggesting the macro attempts to download and execute a file. This indicates an attempt to download and run a second-stage payload, likely delivered via a malicious attachment.

Heuristics 2

  • 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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
99a6a52acb8f5c734f6d86faf89e0637a94ac99f953aa583d2658b47d2e1f9b9
xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/sheet1.bin 194023 bytes