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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 76015d0347220210…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSM

105.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 14.0300
MD5: 2b5e04281c5cbff652d0bbc1337dba9d SHA-1: 529a9f6c996e04ff0b4b0227744a893229af8a77 SHA-256: 76015d0347220210c9d16b82f84196fd9c9b66160c6f69d9bfd19efed53739b0
182 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File

The file is an XLSM document containing Excel 4.0 macros, which are known to be used for malicious purposes. The macros utilize dangerous functions like CALL and EXEC, indicating an attempt to download and execute a second-stage payload. The embedded URLs are likely part of this download mechanism.

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.
  • Excel 4.0 Auto_Open defined name critical OOXML_XLM_AUTOOPEN_DEFINEDNAME
    Workbook defines _xlnm.Auto_Open or _xlnm.Auto_Close while containing an XLM macro sheet. This is the OOXML/XLSB auto-execution shape for Excel 4.0 macros.
  • Dangerous XLM formula APIs: CALL, EXEC, FORMULA.FILL, HALT critical OOXML_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN
    Excel 4.0 macro sheet uses formula APIs that call directly into Win32 (=CALL/=EXEC/=REGISTER/=FORMULA). These are the primitives used to download payloads, write files, and start processes from an XLM macro without invoking VBA.
  • 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://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/excel/2006/main
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/spreadsheetml/2009/9/ac

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.xml
1ac8164566eb69dad25e2fb55eafdc9b2a3eac004a1f0cc291930400a77c99df
xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/intlsheet1.xml 230169 bytes