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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 2a91db7037929c58…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

512.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-07-18
MD5: cc78f4d5c74374b756a2915e7e9b84f4 SHA-1: bc561a352e435c5c57c3de0fd6474a549065f9fd SHA-256: 2a91db7037929c584d42566510b079943bea81f3ed20b6f9383629bfa091ff8f
134 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.005 Visual Basic

The critical heuristic firing for CVE_2017_0199 indicates that the OLE2Link object is attempting to load a remote resource from the URL http://43.230.202.82/IKM/IBMCENTOSIBMCENTOSIBM%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23IBMCENTOSIBMCENTOSICNEBM.DOC. Although no executable VBA code was found, the presence of embedded PDF objects and the CVE exploit strongly suggest a downloader or dropper functionality. The embedded PDF objects themselves contain suspicious findings, further reinforcing the malicious nature of the file.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators info PDF_IMAGE_ONLY_LURE
    PDF has 1 image XObject(s) and the content stream contains no text-emitting operators (BT/ET, Tj, TJ, ', ") in either raw bytes or decompressed streams — this is the screenshot-as-PDF pattern used to bypass text-based scanners and to deliver instructions purely through rendered pixels. It is informational unless paired with invisible links or risky URI context.
  • 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://43.230.202.82/IKM/IBMCENTOSIBMCENTOSIBM%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23IBMCENTOSIBMCENTOSICNEBM.DOC

Extracted artifacts 6

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
stream_003_off00005f60.bin
2998a126f4fa11ceb265371a5f7968ec18bc4692a32631a544232dc74040021f		 decompressed-pdf-stream PDF FlateDecoded stream at offset 0x5F60 252488 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00000e00.pdf
40bb82a72c689c3d8d5918f18ec79e95293a2dc7ba69c1bd05f3c1ca3633b9ed		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE00 520704 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006400.pdf
820a7273c091d31ac6ac985a8aefd384879c845724acb2b1aa1b3599e53d8a7f		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6400 498688 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00029400.pdf
0cfac701cca1c25e042bdec2457fbecf9b41c6a93071d4f4cc25a07e355ae88b		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x29400 355328 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off0004bc00.pdf
d07cd4ee4f54797e8129ba3a11c974faccf57a665169cba8a4313cdb16353695		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x4BC00 214016 bytes

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