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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c97f1ce9ea381230…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

81.0 KB Created: 2021-10-27 10:31:49 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 12.0000
MD5: 1983845a185dd73d85fecc11530d5e86 SHA-1: c663befcd4035887b91ddd2bb9f67b25643bfc89 SHA-256: c97f1ce9ea3812308e97b802cf844256be48a8922fcf3c8212ea33739909287a
182 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample contains Excel 4.0 macros that utilize WinAPI functions like URLDownloadToFileA to download files. The reconstructed path 'C:\ProgramData\aVbk rYMiuMlKlb l' suggests a potential staging location for downloaded payloads. The macros are designed to download and execute a second-stage payload from the provided URLs, indicating a downloader or droppper functionality.

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 (3 URLs) 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://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/910251809556271117/912318814543282226/cGrqSnWcuntfuck.mp4
    • https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/910251809556271117/912318764127772692/ayHpfrvQqDWqgRcuntfuck.mp4
    • https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/911261535769362435/912322708434481172/YIQFLgQsQkDFcuntfuck.mp4

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xlm_sheet_00.bin
2dfee7d5c9a84c359e523d79e8b5d4d335ba1d44f56f0221f49de88c15a8eeea
xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/sheet1.bin 5763 bytes