Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis — malicious · 3175b5a15f1d5a2a

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

852.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-08-22

MD5: b9199ff65b5e2ec8bc73deef2e7edc32 SHA-1: eff8502149520de101598267dd9618978d734f65 SHA-256: 3175b5a15f1d5a2a522f38ffaebf0ee65831a1e202e7a6f1634ca53233c4fc47

112 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK

T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.005 Visual Basic

The sample leverages the CVE-2017-0199 vulnerability, indicated by the OLE2Link/URL Moniker heuristic, to fetch and execute a remote payload from the URL http://104.168.46.25/doc0/1/O0O0O0O0o0o0o0O0O0O0O0O0O0000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23000000000000000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%2300000000000.dOC. Although no executable VBA code was found, the presence of the CVE exploit and an embedded PDF with suspicious static findings suggests a downloader or exploit delivery mechanism. The embedded PDF's 'PDF_IMAGE_ONLY_LURE' finding further supports a social engineering attempt.

Heuristics 5

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 high 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.
PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators info PDF_IMAGE_ONLY_LURE

PDF has 2 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://104.168.46.25/doc0/1/O0O0O0O0o0o0o0O0O0O0O0O0O0000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23000000000000000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%2300000000000.dOC
- http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
- http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
- http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/
- http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
- http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/

Extracted artifacts 4

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

Filename	Kind	Source	Size
`macros.bas` `7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673`	vba-macro	oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source)	1206 bytes
`polyglot_child_pdf_off00046000.pdf` `3bd3d2ef0aa5575b30d3f2dd93126a4f5983b1025fdced21b3ecfe6f81e02a3e`	polyglot-child-pdf	Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x46000	585728 bytes
`polyglot_child_pdf_off00001000.pdf` `ddcf228cf8707fa722e43e469a65c47fa11bbdd7dfd612042cb4f3d28ad001d5`	polyglot-child-pdf	Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x1000	868352 bytes
`polyglot_child_pdf_off0006f400.pdf` `5f61841eca3de18b613cf518a8903a5181c4ea419a779369bfd6cb9ce1d94c0c`	polyglot-child-pdf	Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6F400	416768 bytes

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