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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 196ab1dc5aaf9c62…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

1.15 MB
MD5: 7fef99f8bc4026902c87653d11684939 SHA-1: 9d0cf9d8f873177c690c3cdbc274696fed3e7698 SHA-256: 196ab1dc5aaf9c6227fb860c022000c8bdd999d0f2696e90e08d61bc8b7473a6
280 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is a password-encrypted Excel spreadsheet that contains an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. This object exhibits an anomaly where it carries a payload-like Ole10Native stream, which is highly indicative of an exploit carrier. ClamAV also detected this file as a downloader, further supporting its malicious nature. The presence of these elements suggests the file is designed to exploit vulnerabilities and download a secondary payload.

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.
  • 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.
  • ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.af2fa5c5d0587870-9978799-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.af2fa5c5d0587870-9978799-0
  • 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.
  • Equation Editor object carries payload-like Ole10Native stream high OLE_EQUATION_OLE10NATIVE_PAYLOAD_ANOMALY
    Default-encrypted OOXML embedded OLE object declares the Equation Editor CLSID but stores a large high-entropy Ole10Native stream with malformed package sizing. This is exploit-shaped Equation/OLE payload evidence.
  • 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.