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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 0b77a433d6b4cd59…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

1.31 MB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-10-04
MD5: 36d915310eb63842ca7c41722a3d8e3a SHA-1: 33b4dfc0eda9c72193c3b3aa1d9c301a61399aba SHA-256: 0b77a433d6b4cd598c07971782a21ddbbf7352a8fbc9b4f352dbf5d271e68dd3
312 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1204.002 Malicious Link: Malicious File T1566 Phishing T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment T1059.005 Exploitation for Windows: Visual Basic

The Excel file contains an embedded Equation Editor object known to be vulnerable to CVE-2017-11882. This object contains a secondary PDF file which has a direct link to an executable payload. The PDF also exhibits parser evasion techniques, indicating a deliberate attempt to conceal malicious activity. No VBA macros were found to be executable, but the primary attack vector is the exploitation of the Equation Editor vulnerability and the subsequent PDF payload delivery.

Heuristics 9

  • Equation Editor Ole10Native payload — CVE-2017-11882 critical CVE likely CVE_2017_11882_EQUATION_OLE10NATIVE
    An embedded Microsoft Equation 3.0 object (CLSID 0002CE02-0000-0000-C000-000000000046) carries an Ole10Native packager stream instead of the normal Equation Native/MTEF data. This is the weaponized Equation Editor RCE delivery shape used by CVE-2017-11882 / CVE-2018-0802 maldocs. The payload (font-record overflow + shellcode) is frequently encrypted and the stream name case-scrambled to evade scanners, but an Equation object holding an Ole10Native stream has no benign use.
  • Equation Editor OLE object high CVE related OLE_EQUATION_EDITOR
    Contains Equation Editor object — related to CVE-2017-11882 / CVE-2018-0802 exploitation, but CLSID presence alone is not the malformed MTEF exploit primitive.
  • 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.
  • PDF link points directly to executable/archive payload critical PDF_DIRECT_PAYLOAD_LINK
    PDF contains a clickable HTTP(S) URI whose path ends in an executable, script, shortcut, disk image, or archive extension. Documents can legitimately link to installers, so this is a high-risk delivery indicator rather than a standalone exploit fingerprint.
  • x86 GetPC stub (CALL $+5; POP EAX) high SC_GETPC_CALL
    x86 GetPC stub (CALL $+5; POP EAX)
  • Clickable PDF combines external action with parser-evasion structure high PDF_ACTION_PARSER_EVASION
    PDF has an external clickable URI together with object graph or xref structures that make parsers disagree, such as divergent duplicate objects, parser divergence, or xref offset mismatch. That combination is stronger than a plain link: the document is both an outward-action carrier and a parser-confusion/evasion sample.
  • 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.
  • 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 https://https://www.google.co.in/example.com
    • http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/

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
ole10native_00.bin
f6c5760374bb4f77be3fc9d12066c3c5694661dd30c759afe4815201d690f399		 ole-package OLE Ole10Native stream: MBD00039D39/OLE10nATIVE 1233 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00072a00.pdf
fb76a098e101b588182c7bbc2f1d03be8d9f5af9b25297ea3fc017696ac33cd0		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x72A00 906240 bytes
stream_004_off00005d60.bin
2998a126f4fa11ceb265371a5f7968ec18bc4692a32631a544232dc74040021f		 decompressed-pdf-stream PDF FlateDecoded stream at offset 0x5D60 252488 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00001200.pdf
26482d291e4e1354d77ce10d13fc774d5b964f411e2ee1a185d4ff61ef781df5		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x1200 1371136 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006600.pdf
8561f576a89b9316efb45a0c918ec2360606ff3f228cb16ec6e3617203865f3d		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6600 1349632 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00029600.pdf
510869571ab1d1d06c2aee35aaab4e152754fa713c736799fc0dc61c03edc408		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x29600 1206272 bytes

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