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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 20d7ed4552fa758c…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

132.5 KB First seen: 2022-04-20
MD5: 6157dc991dd45e258a1f37e96f7c996f SHA-1: 3ec1fa0d97cf5a77fe8a88639742814eea24ad51 SHA-256: 20d7ed4552fa758c1a9eb2a0636e96b8a327937a45f42fbb325bee4bcfc5e19a
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1559.001 Component Object Model Hijacking

The sample is a password-protected Excel file that contains an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. Heuristics indicate this object is anomalous and specifically flags CVE-2018-0798, suggesting it's designed to exploit this vulnerability for initial execution. The document is encrypted, preventing direct analysis of its content, but the presence of the exploit carrier strongly implies a malicious intent to execute arbitrary code.

Heuristics 5

  • 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.
  • CVE-2018-0798 — anomalous Equation Editor native stream high CVE likely CVE_2018_0798_EQUATION_NATIVE_ANOMALY
    Default-encrypted OOXML contains embedded Equation Editor data with anomalous native stream bytes consistent with a CVE-2018-0798-style exploit. This is treated as likely CVE evidence because the Equation object is malformed and payload-like.
  • 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.
  • 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.

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