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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a16e83b9d27c9783…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

26.3 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 14.0300
MD5: 4f2bc3375c18fc79e4e5ed4c54e7b3e9 SHA-1: b28227e68a83c5d3bf2e5a417a0e7a063eb1bf68 SHA-256: a16e83b9d27c9783e49e2f134b98cd6a07028d92d18bb1237eb562cf0a255760
182 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros, which are known to be used for malicious purposes. The macros utilize WinAPI functions such as URLDownloadToFileA and ShellExecuteA to download a payload from the URL https://columbia25.aula-web.net/ds/3.gif and execute it. This indicates a downloader or droppper attack pattern.

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. 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.
  • URL reconstructed from XLM cell array (1 URL) 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://columbia25.aula-web.net/ds/3.gif

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
6651bdb46904db7afdc3e5576514edde72d47967bab1a40096ef116c3930aae0		 xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/sheet1.bin 200467 bytes

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