OFFICE_EMBEDDED_MACRO_OBJECT — Embedded Office object carries macros

critical OFFICE_EMBEDDED_MACRO_OBJECT

What it means

An embedded OLE/OOXML object is itself an Office file that contains a VBA macro project or an Excel 4.0 (XLM) macro sheet.

Why it fires

Hiding a macro-bearing workbook or document inside another document — often under an obfuscated, non-standard part name — is a macro-smuggling technique that defeats scanners which only inspect the outer document's macro storage. No benign authoring workflow stages a hidden macro project this way, so an embedded Office file with its own macros is a strong delivery-vehicle indicator.

Other Office heuristics

OLE_VBA_AFFINE_MSI_DOWNLOADER OLE_VBA_AUTOEXEC_FRAGMENTED_SHELL OLE_VBA_DESTRUCTIVE_WORKBOOK_SHUTDOWN OLE_VBA_BIDIRECTIONAL_MACROCOPY_REPLICATION OOXML_BRAND_LINK_MISMATCH_LURE CVE_2016_7262 POLYGLOT_OOXML_REL_COMMAND OLE_RAW_PCODE_CROSS_DOCUMENT_REPLICATION OLE_VBA_CROSS_WORKBOOK_REPLICATION OOXML_XLM_DANGEROUS_FN OFFICE_DEFAULT_PASSWORD_VBA_DROP_EXEC OFFICE_EMBEDDED_SWF EMBEDDED_OFFICE_CHILD_STATIC_TRIAGE OLE_EMBEDDED_EXE OLE_VBA_EMBEDDED_PE_DROPPER OLE_ENCRYPTED_AND_MALFORMED CVE_2017_11882_EQUATION_NATIVE_CMD_RELATED CVE_2017_11882 OLE_EQUATION_OLE10NATIVE_DOWNLOADER OLE_MTEF_NATIVE_CODE_STUB OLE_EQUATION_OLE10NATIVE_SHELLCODE OOXML_XLM_MACRO_IN_WORKSHEET OLE_XLS5_LAROUX_MACRO_VIRUS OLE_VBA_XLSTART_WORKBOOK_PERSISTENCE