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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 248da1553ce35bb6…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

124.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2026-06-12
MD5: a822b55a9a6a8b66c068d22e52d3203f SHA-1: 50fdee4b9ea69300c2769e613c92a69e4adcc0a8 SHA-256: 248da1553ce35bb6c499a660fcd92bde6e3545b56b65b63308e7b7630f376bfc
70 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1059.005 Visual Basic

The critical heuristic firing indicates exploitation of CVE-2017-0199, which is used to download and execute a remote payload from the provided URL. Although VBA macros are present, they do not contain executable statements, suggesting the exploit relies on the OLE object itself for execution. The embedded URL is the primary indicator of compromise.

Heuristics 3

  • OLE2Link / URL Moniker → remote loader — CVE-2017-0199 critical CVE likely CVE_2017_0199
    Document contains an embedded OLE link object whose URL Moniker points to a remote URL. When the host file is opened, Office follows the link, downloads the URL, and processes the response based on its Content-Type (HTA -> mshta.exe, RTF → Word, etc.) — the documented CVE-2017-0199 primitive. The URL extension is not a reliable filter; servers can return different payloads to Office's user agent.
  • 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.
  • 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 http://000000015353126315/httpswww.bettercloud.commonitorthe-perils-of-exposed-files-why-external-file-sharing-needs-security-clouding.php In document text (OLE body)

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
SHA-256: 7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
Attribute VB_Name = "ThisWorkbook"
Attribute VB_Base = "0{00020819-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = False
Attribute VB_Customizable = True

Attribute VB_Name = "Sheet1"
Attribute VB_Base = "0{00020820-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = False
Attribute VB_Customizable = True

Attribute VB_Name = "Sheet2"
Attribute VB_Base = "0{00020820-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = False
Attribute VB_Customizable = True

Attribute VB_Name = "Sheet3"
Attribute VB_Base = "0{00020820-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = False
Attribute VB_Customizable = True