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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 48c9bddfba3d0625…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

313.5 KB
MD5: 5e92de9489722f5a8dfa5631415526ce SHA-1: 18ccc1e1003f6eee1c95cc1a8250f816c5c39702 SHA-256: 48c9bddfba3d0625630fa5d0fbcbfdd1b2fb324c332256cf772b0f25903b4134
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample is an OOXML exploit carrier, specifically leveraging an Equation Editor OLE object. High-confidence heuristics indicate the presence of CVE-2018-0798, a vulnerability in Microsoft Equation Editor. This suggests the file is designed to exploit this vulnerability for initial execution, likely leading to the download and execution of a second-stage payload.

Heuristics 5

  • 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 document is password-encrypted medium OFFICE_ENCRYPTED_PACKAGE
    OLE container holds MS-OFFCRYPTO encrypted package (Standard Encryption (Office 2007+, AES-128)).
  • 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.