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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 688ba8d6e2124249…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

75.4 KB Created: 2021-10-27 10:31:49 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 12.0000 First seen: 2021-11-07
MD5: 0d9604c9a2d1df9e343fa1f0860e8451 SHA-1: 1611dfe3614e2e6c55c3a94c67228aa45fc04070 SHA-256: 688ba8d6e2124249816291d6110f7f0d1ac12e654c99440fa48f9ef6f1ed8742
182 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The sample contains Excel 4.0 macros that reassemble a command to execute 'mshta C:\ProgramData\excel.rtf'. This command is designed to download and execute a second-stage payload from one of the provided URLs, likely hosted on Discord. The macro's structure and the command execution strongly indicate a downloader or droppper functionality.

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/905431835851509763/905456429668917289/vFMkplPzN.mp3
    • https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/905422350693048413/905451024578388048/STDOuJCeYWSZy.mp3
    • https://api.onedrive.com/v1.0/shares/u!aHR0cHM6Ly9vbmVkcml2ZS5saXZlLmNvbS9lbWJlZD9yZXNpZD1GOTAyQkM0MkIxRDI2NTNDJTIxMTA3JmF1dGhrZXk9IUFLWlFuN1VWUjROYkpUNA/root/content

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
8762062bda90115374c80e94d832dc30e6e81d399902b0d1db1f90b25f402f6b		 xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/sheet1.bin 101981 bytes

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