Qbot — Office (OOXML) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 df14ddbca45d9651…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

1.18 MB Created: 2015-06-05 18:19:34 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 16.0300 First seen: 2022-04-20
MD5: bc0f2ea6c993bb0e9dd6fa64b022ca12 SHA-1: ca16fdab8378f3f55ae25495b354e1c5b3cacb4a SHA-256: df14ddbca45d96514be637fef06186f938fc30e205059085c6c8a39e91f2fb2b
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Qbot · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.005 Visual Basic T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer T1218.010 Regsvr32 T1059.001 PowerShell

The file contains Excel 4.0 macros that utilize WinAPI functions such as CreateDirectoryA. The macros appear to download files (indicated by 'urlmonZ' and '.dat' filenames) and save them to specific directories like 'C:\Flopers\Gorl'. Finally, it uses 'regsvr32' to execute the downloaded OCX files, suggesting a downloader or initial access mechanism for Qbot.

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.
  • ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.Qbot04223-9946522-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.Qbot04223-9946522-0
  • Embedded OLE object medium OOXML_OLE_OBJECT
    Document contains an embedded OLE object

Extracted artifacts 3

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
ooxml_oleobject_00.bin
24683ff192d5ff2bf2f841df675e1bec8a46ae42de534fcdbc64fb77dd4f33a5		 ooxml-ole-object OOXML embedded OLE part: xl/embeddings/oleObject1.bin 4465152 bytes
emf_00.emf
481999fdbcc1fde5a4e3a4e9970e4bbf3c8dbeb2e2a366cc840aa848993159f4		 ooxml-emf OOXML EMF part: xl/media/image2.emf 2159428 bytes
xlm_sheet_00.bin
8084bcc5819ffecbcd0ce22ff3e5d2aef49eee72a09be45c6778f2ece968e04b		 xlm-macrosheet OOXML XLM macro sheet: xl/macrosheets/sheet1.bin 2501 bytes

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