Malicious Office (OOXML) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 0981d8bad1c72227…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML)

23.8 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 12.0000 First seen: 2019-12-10
MD5: d51d0e94b8a50695de5bfa6444bc003c SHA-1: 5955ba02a269967f3da206ac9ff01beb4d9050c3 SHA-256: 0981d8bad1c722273fe54c7fecccbb5785b46548af32f7faa88dde29913fbf2c
128 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an OOXML document containing an embedded OLE object, specifically identified as an Equation Editor object. Heuristics indicate this object is anomalous and potentially exploits CVE-2018-0798. The document body contains a fake invoice lure with a prompt to 'ENABLE EDITING TO VIEW CLEAR DOCUMENT', which is a common tactic to bypass macro security and execute embedded content. The presence of the OLE object and the lure strongly suggests this file is designed to exploit vulnerabilities upon enabling editing.

Heuristics 5

  • Equation Editor OLE object high CVE related OLE_EQUATION_EDITOR
    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
    Embedded Equation Editor OLE data contains anomalous native stream bytes consistent with a CVE-2018-0798-style Equation Editor exploit. This is treated as likely CVE evidence because the Equation object is malformed and payload-like, but it does not match the exact public matrix-overflow byte signature.
  • Embedded OLE object medium OOXML_OLE_OBJECT
    Document contains an embedded OLE object
  • Macro/content-enable lure medium SE_ENABLE_LURE
    Document instructs the user to enable macros or editing — a common technique used by malware droppers to bypass Office macro security settings
  • Fake invoice / payment lure low SE_INVOICE_LURE
    Document contains invoice or payment language paired with an action verb — useful context when combined with link, macro, or attachment indicators

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
ooxml_oleobject_00.bin ooxml-ole-object OOXML embedded OLE part: xl/embeddings/oleObject1.bin 4096 bytes
SHA-256: f5b475b197959c6a2a620db01f0175a3985ba24d4667ea0498bdc459c91ec38a
ooxml_oleobject_00_ole10native_00.bin ole-package OOXML xl/embeddings/oleObject1.bin Ole10Native stream: Ole10Native 2023 bytes
SHA-256: 08e165634d3a3aba34a7a74119d3e3b702a866de2b6d65ae384b164a8d2a0cfb

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