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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 65bf1ccf1f2d9461…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSM

528.8 KB Created: 2013-08-30 14:29:57 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 16.0300 First seen: 2026-01-07
MD5: 6a02352f285a79a446aee1175cd989b8 SHA-1: 6ba9c879332736765db9fb5318e6864e899df005 SHA-256: 65bf1ccf1f2d94610c59feb1b21b41b58bd3a328be75cba2f063437889561a5b
390 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.003 Windows Command Shell T1204.002 Malicious File T1566.002 Spearphishing Attachment

The sample is an XLSM file containing a Workbook_Open macro that attempts to disable security features and execute obfuscated VBA code. This code uses WScript.Shell and CreateObject to likely download and execute a secondary payload from the embedded URL. The document body content appears to be related to tax or employment information, serving as a lure to trick users into enabling macros.

Heuristics 11

  • Shell() call in VBA critical OLE_VBA_SHELL
    Shell() call in VBA
  • WScript.Shell usage critical OLE_VBA_WSCRIPT
    WScript.Shell usage
  • Obfuscated auto-exec VBA loader critical OLE_VBA_OBFUSCATED_AUTOEXEC_LOADER
    Auto-exec VBA reconstructs strings with a heavy custom decoder (numeric char-array, repeated hex-string decode, or junk-token Replace removal) and feeds them to a COM-instantiation or execution sink. This obfuscated-loader shape keeps CreateObject/Shell/URL indicators out of the macro source.
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject call
  • GetObject call high OLE_VBA_GETOBJ
    GetObject call
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Compiled VBA/cache stream contains an auto-execution token together with shell/download/object-execution tokens. This catches p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where visible source is unavailable.
  • VBA project inside OOXML medium OOXML_VBA
    Document contains a VBA project — VBA macros present
  • Macro/content-enable lure medium SE_ENABLE_LURE
    Document instructs the user to enable macros or editing — a common technique used by malware droppers to bypass Office macro security settings
  • Hidden worksheet (veryHidden, hidden) low OOXML_HIDDEN_SHEET
    Excel workbook contains 13 hidden sheet(s) — hidden sheets are commonly used to conceal macro code, staging data, or intermediate payload construction
  • 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://www.frez.co.uk

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
08f496abbc3ee237de52fd6223ce462233d5a79912f61b5ed24ffe6415251dde		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source from OOXML) 625763 bytes
vbaProject_00.bin
b14a7115e750fa89757df4f8bd9b20f5170b0e3b78533be472b28c0772ed3a0e		 vba-project OOXML VBA project: xl/vbaProject.bin 1107968 bytes

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