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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4178cc7e9ab81e49…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

843.2 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 14.0300
MD5: 631c3aeeef5359d8420541c9079df483 SHA-1: 89b573498f682549abe8fae94b43728596448118 SHA-256: 4178cc7e9ab81e4937c29fde8763d37d8f870841b011838ccfa822e08e1c81e4
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1204.001 Malicious Link: Malicious Link T1559 Component Object Model Hijacking T1559.001 Component Object Model Hijacking: Component Object Model Hijacking

The sample is an Office Open XML spreadsheet containing an embedded OLE object, specifically identified as a Microsoft Equation Editor object. High-severity heuristics indicate that this Equation Editor object is anomalous and likely contains a malicious payload, exploiting CVE-2018-0798. The embedded object's native stream is malformed, suggesting it's designed to trigger an exploit rather than render as intended. This points to a delivery mechanism leveraging a known vulnerability in the Equation Editor component.

Heuristics 4

  • Equation Editor OLE object high CVE related OLE_EQUATION_EDITOR
    Embedded OLE object xl/embeddings/VPp42TmzE.kWeHy80 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

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
ooxml_oleobject_00.bin
d88149c10d3bea21ebf2c23fcc65bcb2d33aa4b890a6a571779df1d96c531dab		 ooxml-ole-object OOXML embedded OLE part: xl/embeddings/VPp42TmzE.kWeHy80 1129472 bytes
ooxml_oleobject_00_ole10native_00.bin
c03f435c2ea8bc69519f73fa0e7f0252bb7a46ff33144dce64c8fc6782516a50		 ole-package OOXML xl/embeddings/VPp42TmzE.kWeHy80 Ole10Native stream: olE10Native 1117926 bytes

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