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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 18bae59799967657…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

864.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-10-12
MD5: 43641705b4885ee0ce5f1463dedc3e1d SHA-1: 2861a5a52012157124f74def27dd2853818ffb22 SHA-256: 18bae59799967657ba2fccc8595f7a55b98cdcd7427525d34a95a2f309271394
264 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1204.001 Malicious Link: Malicious Link T1559 Component Object Model Hijacking T1559.001 Component Object Model Hijacking: Component Object Model Hijacking

The file contains an embedded Equation Editor object, a known vector for exploiting CVE-2017-11882. This object likely contains a payload that, when triggered, leads to the execution of a secondary embedded PDF. The PDF itself exhibits suspicious characteristics, including a direct link to a payload, indicating a multi-stage attack designed to download and execute further malicious content. The presence of multiple embedded PDF artifacts and the specific heuristic firings strongly suggest this exploit chain.

Heuristics 7

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 8

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
ole10native_00.bin
d7b9101c0d4bf8c4a2a31849e215051b050bf70e67eaa82ed0ceed1ab2fa3e5b		 ole-package OLE Ole10Native stream: MBD00057046/oLE10NatIVE 1418 bytes
stream_004_off00005d60.bin
2998a126f4fa11ceb265371a5f7968ec18bc4692a32631a544232dc74040021f		 decompressed-pdf-stream PDF FlateDecoded stream at offset 0x5D60 252488 bytes
font_01_sfnt_off0002b17d.bin
68d167e68895a344f3603a4efd0d8438eb8fdebe759cee48f2b4adf75c76c961		 pdf-font-stream PDF embedded font (sfnt) at offset 0x2B17D 12100 bytes
font_02_sfnt_off0002cf95.bin
50551000b9f90b3f445ee94749557d9ddf96697a74984b3ccf3d2bae66910750		 pdf-font-stream PDF embedded font (sfnt) at offset 0x2CF95 15820 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00001000.pdf
4dad027d10b8c902b2bfdc0f169087e159ff49aa734e271bc36e417f3ba159e5		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x1000 881152 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006400.pdf
61eade4c0dedad6d94bd46f0bdcc359b1dc1e4128877e594240253a218703533		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6400 859648 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00029200.pdf
d332c7eba0efd39738131ab0810bd9286d3725cfe0b3cf1cec73e38d833718d5		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x29200 716800 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00031200.pdf
d2754c6c76bae71868f9ae77c379598746c1eb03426cd951c9d0c7c07e1aab0b		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x31200 684032 bytes

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