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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 738d1e91afc68696…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

27.9 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 14.0300
MD5: 58559314c81c1b6dbeed0187b8075b31 SHA-1: dc9c82a6c855052107e3f95e20a7273e81b8717b SHA-256: 738d1e91afc6869656de56f6749b94194745bb56ad920e3500d300307660d5ee
242 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, identified by critical heuristics indicating WinAPI calls for downloading and executing files. The macros reconstruct URLs from cell arrays, specifically 'https://marisofi.ru/ds/11.gif' and 'https://marisofi.ru', which are likely used to fetch and run a secondary payload. The use of WinAPI functions like DownloadToFileA and ShellExecuteA strongly suggests an intent to download and execute malicious code.

Heuristics 5

  • Excel 4.0 macro sheet (1 sheet(s)) critical 3 related findings 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.
  • 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://marisofi.ru Referenced by macro
    • https://marisofi.ru/ds/11.gifReferenced by macro

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
1c1be3cd13c07ebcb4019973cb7dc9e05029215b5b4121a3a266d51a5a5b3b9f
xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/intlsheet1.bin 197263 bytes
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
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... (truncated)