MALICIOUS
242
Risk Score
Malware Insights
MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic
T1204.002 Malicious File
T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer
The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, identified by critical heuristics indicating the presence of WinAPI and download strings. These macros are designed to reconstruct and execute a URL, specifically 'https://icgz.co.zw/ds/12.gif', likely to download and execute a second-stage payload. The use of WinAPI functions like DownloadToFileA and ShellExecuteA further supports this malicious intent.
Heuristics 5
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Excel 4.0 macro sheet (1 sheet(s)) critical 3 related findings OOXML_XLM_MACROSHEETSpreadsheet 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.
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Binary XLM macro sheet with WinAPI/download strings critical OOXML_XLM_BINARY_WINAPI_STRINGSExcel 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.
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XLM payload reassembled from CHAR()/split formulas critical OOXML_XLM_REASSEMBLED_PAYLOADAn 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.
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URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (1 URL) critical OOXML_XLM_CELL_ARRAY_URLExcel 4.0 macro sheet stages its payload URL across individual numeric cells (one ASCII charcode per cell), inside an embedded HTA that uses VBScript Chr()/&-concat obfuscation, or split across multi-char fragment cells a download formula concatenates by reference (=A1&A2&… / CONCATENATE(...)). 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/shared-string cells in row-major and column-major order plus FORMULA cell-reference concatenation in token order.
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Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URLOne 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://icgz.co.zw/ds/12.gif Referenced by macro
Extracted artifacts 1
Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.
| Filename | Kind | Source | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
xlm_sheet_00.bin |
xlm-macrosheet | OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/intlsheet1.bin | 197374 bytes |
SHA-256: 61533e2a12e00326d53033989b1bdb00e9e34b096600977e87a39cb660e5e51b |
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Preview scriptFirst 1,000 lines of the extracted script
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% �� & % �� & % �� &
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... (truncated)
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