Qbot — Office (OOXML) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 691b3986a96075ed…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

29.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 14.0300
MD5: a63e39780292b81901d319de7f838336 SHA-1: 9ef21f864caefd5a0b3f3ea4a6388330ed6a09ab SHA-256: 691b3986a96075ed60131c4ad67fec215939e2c0dc0f6d9dbb55551fb4d68d66
302 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Qbot · confidence 95%

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros that utilize WinAPI functions such as DownloadToFileA and ShellExecuteA. These macros reconstruct URLs from cell arrays, specifically 'https://ibs.net.co' and 'https://ibs.net.co/ds/08.gif', to download and execute a secondary payload. The ClamAV detection name 'Xls.Dropper.QbotDocu12020-9818439-0' strongly suggests the Qbot family.

Heuristics 6

  • 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 (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) 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.
  • ClamAV: Xls.Dropper.QbotDocu12020-9818439-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Dropper.QbotDocu12020-9818439-0
  • 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://ibs.net.co
    • https://ibs.net.co/ds/08.gif

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
1d36365df5b063ce363e154dd7e00ff93b8b91ba61e5661b0f17dc724de39bf9		 xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/intlsheet1.bin 197351 bytes

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