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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 092dfda0fb57adaf…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

229.0 KB
MD5: 54693ab7e6a61e5e6d9623ab637aa7a3 SHA-1: 12fc9f3fa4293520fbb572ab4e6d73ee63cb00ba SHA-256: 092dfda0fb57adafb5809f8f6a0bf5d91d0dad02bd7f7e5142ba3293a90f44a6
260 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The sample is an encrypted Office document containing an embedded Equation Editor OLE object, which is a known carrier for exploits. Heuristics indicate a specific vulnerability, CVE-2018-0798, is likely targeted. The document also contains instructions for a password-protected archive, suggesting a multi-stage attack where the password is provided to bypass gateway scanning.

Heuristics 7

  • Equation Editor OLE object high CVE related OLE_EQUATION_EDITOR
    Default-encrypted OOXML embedded OLE object xl/embeddings/oleObject1.bin contains the Equation Editor CLSID, the legacy component exploited by CVE-2017-11882, CVE-2018-0802, and CVE-2018-0798.
  • CVE-2018-0798 — anomalous Equation Editor native stream high CVE likely CVE_2018_0798_EQUATION_NATIVE_ANOMALY
    Default-encrypted OOXML contains embedded Equation Editor data with anomalous native stream bytes consistent with a CVE-2018-0798-style exploit. This is treated as likely CVE evidence because the Equation object is malformed and payload-like.
  • Encrypted Office package with CFB FAT corruption critical OLE_ENCRYPTED_AND_MALFORMED
    Encrypted-package shape co-occurs with FAT-chain corruption — the documented combined evasion form.
  • Default-encrypted OOXML exploit carrier layout high OOXML_ENCRYPTED_EXPLOIT_CARRIER_SHAPE
    Default-password encrypted OOXML package contains embedded OLE object parts and additional activation/decoy parts. This layout is common in malicious Excel exploit delivery and requires inspecting the decrypted package.
  • Password-protected archive handoff high SE_PASSWORD_ARCHIVE_LURE
    Document gives password instructions for an archive or attachment — often used to keep payloads encrypted until after gateway scanning
  • Office document is password-encrypted medium OFFICE_ENCRYPTED_PACKAGE
    OLE container holds MS-OFFCRYPTO encrypted package (Standard Encryption (Office 2007, AES)).
  • Office OOXML encrypted with default VelvetSweatshop password medium OFFICE_DEFAULT_PASSWORD_ENCRYPTED_OOXML
    OLE EncryptedPackage decrypts with Excel's built-in VelvetSweatshop password. Office opens this transparently, and malware uses it to hide OOXML exploit parts from scanners that only inspect the outer OLE container.

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