Qbot — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 7193eca07b381492…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

105.5 KB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2021-11-24
MD5: de68020c06d8ec3fe303cfa19f7700b3 SHA-1: 0b28b62dbb3582365f1895da2ba5475b869c24ab SHA-256: 7193eca07b381492a4987b4fc944c0c3298982a68e193c86f850a351a26bbdc2
262 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Qbot · confidence 95%

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, specifically an Auto_Open entry, which is a strong indicator of malicious intent. These macros are designed to execute and download payloads from the provided URLs. The ClamAV detection as 'Doc.Downloader.Qbot' further supports the classification as a Qbot downloader.

Heuristics 6

  • ClamAV: Doc.Downloader.Qbot11202120-9906200-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.Qbot11202120-9906200-0
  • Excel 4.0 Auto_Open defined name critical OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN_DEFINEDNAME
    oletools recovered an Auto_Open / Auto_Close entry from an Excel 4.0 macro sheet. The raw BIFF name can be tokenized or partially opaque to byte-string checks, but the recovered macro listing confirms the workbook has an XLM auto-execution entry.
  • XLM Auto_Open with dangerous formula APIs critical OLE_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet contains an Auto_Open / Auto_Close entry and dangerous XLM formula APIs that can invoke programs, write files, or transfer control without VBA.
  • URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (3 URLs) critical OLE_XLM_CELL_ARRAY_URL
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet stages its payload URL across the BIFF8 Shared String Table (one quoted-char SST entry concatenated with & at runtime) or across individual numeric cells (one ASCII charcode per cell). 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 BIFF8 record stream and decoding SST entries plus LABELSST/RK/NUMBER cells.
  • Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro sheet present medium OLE_XLM_AUTOOPEN
    Workbook contains an Excel 4.0 macro sheet sub-stream — XLM is rarely seen in modern legitimate workbooks and was a major Office malware vector during 2020-2022.
  • 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://dongarza.com/gJW5ma382Z/x.html Referenced by macro
    • https://headlinepost.net/3AkrPbRj/x.htmlReferenced by macro
    • https://produtoratimedeelenco.com.br/9E6Y322u/x.htmlReferenced by macro

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_macros.txt
2d69a468deda6ef532bccca4917aca41c7abe1a521540a9fe9f977b5d05e05bf
xlm-macro oletools.olevba.extract_all_macros (XLM macro listing) 11378 bytes
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
' 0085     13 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, hidden -  Simb
' 0085     13 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, visible -  Shee
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, hidden -  Sburr
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - worksheet or dialog sheet, hidden -  Sbuur
' 0085     14 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, hidden -  Rgedw
' 0085     11 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, hidden -  KU
' 0085     12 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, hidden -  Buk
' 0085     12 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, hidden -  Buk
' 0085     12 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, hidden -  Buk
' 0085     12 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, hidden -  Buk
' 0085     12 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, hidden -  Buk
' 0085     12 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, hidden -  Buk
' 0085     12 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, hidden -  Buk
' 0085     12 BOUNDSHEET : Sheet Information - Excel 4.0 macro sheet, hidden -  Buk
' 0018     29 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - _xlfn.ARABIC hidden len=2 ptgErr  *INCOMPLETE FORMULA PARSING* Remaining, unparsed expression: b'\x1d'
' 0018     23 LABEL : Cell Value, String Constant - built-in-name 1 Auto_Open len=7 ptgRef3d  Simb!E1 
' 002a      2 PRINTHEADERS : Print Row/Column Labels
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Value, String Constant/ SST
' 00fd     10 LABELSST : Cell Val
... (truncated)