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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 adf1d9e22efc7d95…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSM

53.4 KB Created: 2005-02-15 16:16:17 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 16.0300
MD5: 50097dcbf3f4071e621ebbf3911d6ed5 SHA-1: eef3fad484c512b778a25d931edba6726d39f5f3 SHA-256: adf1d9e22efc7d95a57aa8754fe5e489380c52de240167930f7043d079e34144
310 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.001 PowerShell T1059.005 Visual Basic T1204.002 Malicious File T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

This XLSM file contains a Workbook_Open macro that references PowerShell and cmd.exe, and uses WMI to launch processes. The extracted VBA macro code includes a Base64 decoding function, suggesting it's designed to deobfuscate and execute a payload. The presence of 'macros.bas' and 'vbaProject_00.bin' further indicates malicious macro content. The likely intent is to download and execute a second-stage payload.

Heuristics 9

  • PowerShell reference in VBA critical OLE_VBA_PS
    PowerShell reference in VBA
  • VBA WMI Win32_Process launcher critical OLE_VBA_WMI_PROCESS_CREATE
    VBA macro builds or references a WMI moniker for Win32_Process and invokes .Create to start a command. This is a high-confidence macro execution chain that often hides the WMI class name through string concatenation or helper functions.
  • Workbook_Open macro high OLE_VBA_WBOPEN
    Workbook_Open macro
  • GetObject call high OLE_VBA_GETOBJ
    GetObject call
  • cmd.exe reference in VBA high OLE_VBA_CMD
    cmd.exe reference in VBA
  • Suspicious extracted artifact high EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.
  • VBA project inside OOXML medium OOXML_VBA
    Document contains vbaProject.bin — VBA macros present
  • Fake invoice / payment lure low SE_INVOICE_LURE
    Document contains invoice or payment language paired with an action verb — useful context when combined with link, macro, or attachment indicators
  • 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.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/spreadsheetDrawing
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/spreadsheetml/2009/9/main
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/spreadsheetml/2009/9/ac
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/spreadsheetml/2014/revision

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
55c4db9dccc689859043187f4a42a543f981c8766b83c640814532c46cb76f92		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source from OOXML) 118658 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 2 shell/COM execution token(s). Carved macro source contains an auto-exec entry point and execution/download terms.
vbaProject_00.bin
2397fa5797e9d826039ea9a5f633acde0835f5091e89f20957008510718ff920		 vba-project OOXML VBA project: xl/vbaProject.bin 27648 bytes

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