Malicious Office (OLE) / .XLS — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 05f3c3043ce59ea4…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

277.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-07-14
MD5: c7756dee5c82ff1ad07c6d69f59c4892 SHA-1: f3c089fb55042ec743647924aa75a20c9fbec460 SHA-256: 05f3c3043ce59ea4711d0a090e69382370be2a8ad4f2526260c57eafe305e1fc
134 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File: User Execution T1059.005 PowerShell T1071.001 Web Protocols T1059.001 PowerShell T1059.003 Windows Command Shell

The sample is an OLE file that exploits CVE-2017-0199 via a URL moniker to download a secondary payload. The embedded URL points to a DOC file, which likely contains further malicious content or redirects. The presence of multiple embedded PDF objects with suspicious static findings suggests a complex multi-stage attack. No VBA macros were found to be executable, but the primary exploit vector is clear.

Heuristics 6

  • OLE2Link / URL Moniker → remote loader — CVE-2017-0199 critical CVE likely CVE_2017_0199
    Document contains an embedded OLE link object whose URL Moniker points to a remote URL. When the host file is opened, Office follows the link, downloads the URL, and processes the response based on its Content-Type (HTA -> mshta.exe, RTF → Word, etc.) — the documented CVE-2017-0199 primitive. The URL extension is not a reliable filter; servers can return different payloads to Office's user agent.
  • Secondary embedded PDF body has suspicious static findings critical POLYGLOT_CHILD_PDF_STATIC_TRIAGE
    A valid PDF body was found at a nonzero offset inside another container and its carved contents matched PDF exploit or lure heuristics. This catches polyglots where the top-level magic routes to ZIP/OLE while a PDF reader or downstream parser opens the hidden PDF payload.
  • VBA project contains no executable statements low OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains a VBA project, but extracted modules only contain attributes/options/comments and no executable statements.
  • Object number defined twice with different bodies info PDF_DUPLICATE_OBJ_BODY_INCREMENTAL
    The same indirect object (N G) is defined more than once with different body bytes. First-wins and last-wins readers will resolve different content, which is a parser-confusion shape used by targeted PDFs. Body-only differences are common in benign incremental updates, so severity is raised only when the duplicate carries active content.
  • PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators info PDF_IMAGE_ONLY_LURE
    PDF has 1 image XObject(s) and the content stream contains no text-emitting operators (BT/ET, Tj, TJ, ', ") in either raw bytes or decompressed streams — this is the screenshot-as-PDF pattern used to bypass text-based scanners and to deliver instructions purely through rendered pixels. It is informational unless paired with invisible links or risky URI context.
  • 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://192.3.243.148/450/im/IBWIBMWBIWIBWIBWIBWIBW%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23IBEIBEIBEIBWIBWIBWIBW.DOC

Extracted artifacts 7

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
font_00_sfnt_off0000817d.bin
68d167e68895a344f3603a4efd0d8438eb8fdebe759cee48f2b4adf75c76c961		 pdf-font-stream PDF embedded font (sfnt) at offset 0x817D 12100 bytes
font_01_sfnt_off00009f95.bin
50551000b9f90b3f445ee94749557d9ddf96697a74984b3ccf3d2bae66910750		 pdf-font-stream PDF embedded font (sfnt) at offset 0x9F95 15820 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00000e00.pdf
9e6fd8afd5303c4a12aea47068fd35170a2410e08201319bda048d837479ecca		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE00 280064 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006000.pdf
c2795065fac526e5965d1c06b90c934c7bf8ebb002242cf2ade5e17e40dbfce3		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6000 259072 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off0000e200.pdf
b9f9d054d250cb8e72beea4a5fd0a1dd3d34a5c60e960afd5052ba02ab3d3a09		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE200 225792 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00015e00.pdf
59dded419a35a4dab96d3fa2ce0ba7e3c05993c28a3e8e993664a3afa85031ce		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x15E00 194048 bytes

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