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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 233f50518a6d1b68…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

2.49 MB
MD5: a736a2bd247ebe8f0473953cb5c26011 SHA-1: e4fab4ddd0217795583142284f6e484d08fdc591 SHA-256: 233f50518a6d1b68518d946b84edaa838c74576c6dd5408bd2523251b2fad339
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an encrypted OOXML file that contains an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. Heuristics indicate that this object is anomalous and likely carries a payload, specifically exploiting CVE-2018-0798. The encrypted nature of the document prevents direct analysis of its content, but the presence of the exploit carrier strongly suggests it's designed for initial execution of a secondary payload.

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.
  • 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 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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