Malicious Office (OOXML) — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 0a0209aec51f762c…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML)

387.2 KB Created: 2018-09-09 12:27:30 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 16.0300 First seen: 2020-02-04
MD5: fd6f8e88aefcc24eba669f12a029b326 SHA-1: 777ab5593ead970b347e7f91a4ca96bd22939655 SHA-256: 0a0209aec51f762c2ef04c2beb4cf6c86323d0df311a4ebbc8730841b0ee1e85
162 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is an Office document containing an embedded Equation Editor OLE object, which is known to be vulnerable to CVE-2018-0798. The document body contains a lure to enable editing, suggesting it's designed to trick the user into executing the embedded exploit. The embedded object's Ole10Native stream exhibits high entropy and anomalous characteristics, strongly indicating it carries a malicious payload.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • Equation Editor object carries payload-like Ole10Native stream high OLE_EQUATION_OLE10NATIVE_PAYLOAD_ANOMALY
    Embedded OLE object declares the Equation Editor CLSID but stores a large high-entropy Ole10Native stream with malformed package sizing. This is an exploit-shaped Equation/OLE payload container seen in malicious OOXML samples. It is not assigned to a specific CVE unless the MTEF/Equation Native primitive also matches.
  • 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
  • Suspicious extracted artifact info EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.

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 337920 bytes
SHA-256: 7e85a68478e040debe6f36013dfa176c7ac9680ca2afc0f7d15723b5ddcbb99e
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact entropy is 7.99, consistent with packed or encrypted content.
ooxml_oleobject_00_ole10native_00.bin ole-package OOXML xl/embeddings/oleObject1.bin Ole10Native stream: Ole10NaTiVE 332552 bytes
SHA-256: b99afc6ad360c6d7fafa7028d62900dc538db8b8bead9059aed1fba883d48987
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact entropy is 7.99, consistent with packed or encrypted content.