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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 2efb5ead574a05af…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

4.10 MB Created: 2021-03-23 07:05:13 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 12.0000
MD5: d2c23008ba724369c4b137b392f31fa0 SHA-1: 958bedd1172301d07a350ef6a6a11ee5065aba85 SHA-256: 2efb5ead574a05afddfd8148a425aea1b11509701ce05fa1c500eb3b67f82d80
142 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel file containing an embedded OLE object, specifically an Equation Editor object. Heuristics indicate this object is anomalous and carries a payload, strongly suggesting exploitation of CVE-2018-0798 or a similar Equation Editor vulnerability. The high entropy and size of the Ole10Native stream within the OLE object point to a packed or encrypted second-stage payload being delivered.

Heuristics 5

  • Equation Editor OLE object high CVE related OLE_EQUATION_EDITOR
    Embedded OLE object xl/embeddings/LbB.3HxYoz 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
    Embedded Equation Editor OLE data contains anomalous native stream bytes consistent with a CVE-2018-0798-style Equation Editor exploit. This is treated as likely CVE evidence because the Equation object is malformed and payload-like, but it does not match the exact public matrix-overflow byte signature.
  • Equation Editor object carries payload-like Ole10Native stream high OLE_EQUATION_OLE10NATIVE_PAYLOAD_ANOMALY
    Embedded OLE object declares the Equation Editor CLSID but stores a large high-entropy Ole10Native stream with malformed package sizing. This is an exploit-shaped Equation/OLE payload container seen in malicious OOXML samples. It is not assigned to a specific CVE unless the MTEF/Equation Native primitive also matches.
  • Embedded OLE object medium OOXML_OLE_OBJECT
    Document contains an embedded OLE object
  • Suspicious extracted artifact info EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
ooxml_oleobject_00.bin
c8b9a92abcbd2529e442536a6799bdcc3fd12d401fa4e24514501054924f68ea
ooxml-ole-object OOXML embedded OLE part: xl/embeddings/LbB.3HxYoz 4622848 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact entropy is 7.93, consistent with packed or encrypted content.
ooxml_oleobject_00_ole10native_00.bin
a521f84c7608ece3838644c6f168c9c3d677db13a58194cc6941c313a5f5b0a5
ole-package OOXML xl/embeddings/LbB.3HxYoz Ole10Native stream: Ole10Native 4584061 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact entropy is 7.99, consistent with packed or encrypted content.