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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 48917db662d7e845…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

514.5 KB
MD5: a6a01a7f49ec76d7ed1966035f41252a SHA-1: 2bd0cb5d11308b1f392b4c650687f2a2751ae0cd SHA-256: 48917db662d7e845df3981e127b51b0beb5472a045f52231d58ebcac9dc4746e
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an encrypted OOXML file containing an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. High-severity heuristics indicate the presence of an exploit carrier and specifically flag CVE-2018-0798, suggesting exploitation of a vulnerability within the Equation Editor component. The document's encryption and the nature of the embedded object strongly indicate it's designed to execute arbitrary code upon opening.

Heuristics 4

  • Equation Editor OLE object high CVE related OLE_EQUATION_EDITOR
    Default-encrypted OOXML embedded OLE object xl/embeddings/oleObject1.bin 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
    Default-encrypted OOXML contains embedded Equation Editor data with anomalous native stream bytes consistent with a CVE-2018-0798-style exploit. This is treated as likely CVE evidence because the Equation object is malformed and payload-like.
  • Default-encrypted OOXML exploit carrier layout high OOXML_ENCRYPTED_EXPLOIT_CARRIER_SHAPE
    Default-password encrypted OOXML package contains embedded OLE object parts and additional activation/decoy parts. This layout is common in malicious Excel exploit delivery and requires inspecting the decrypted package.
  • Office OOXML encrypted with default VelvetSweatshop password medium OFFICE_DEFAULT_PASSWORD_ENCRYPTED_OOXML
    OLE EncryptedPackage decrypts with Excel's built-in VelvetSweatshop password. Office opens this transparently, and malware uses it to hide OOXML exploit parts from scanners that only inspect the outer OLE container.