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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4acc03ce5a9ebd6e…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

940.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-08-17
MD5: 300cb5465f5e7dcdddcf2a83ee24bb43 SHA-1: 910ae2cd05f4015152148dd59714697d273f6fd6 SHA-256: 4acc03ce5a9ebd6ecc79ff802659be9c43ebbc9c0aef79aeec284c7c74f7651f
134 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious Link T1059.005 Visual Basic

The critical heuristic firing for CVE_2017_0199 indicates that the sample is designed to exploit this vulnerability. The embedded URL http://104.168.46.25/IMI/2/0O0O0O0O0O0O0O0O0O00000000%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 is highly suspicious and likely serves as the download location for a secondary malicious payload. The presence of embedded PDF artifacts and the OLE structure further support a multi-stage attack. No VBA macros were found to be executable, but the CVE exploit is the primary indicator of malicious intent.

Heuristics 6

  • 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 critical 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.
  • Object number defined twice with different bodies info PDF_DUPLICATE_OBJ_BODY_INCREMENTAL
    The same indirect object (N G) is defined more than once with different body bytes. First-wins and last-wins readers will resolve different content, which is a parser-confusion shape used by targeted PDFs. Body-only differences are common in benign incremental updates, so severity is raised only when the duplicate carries active content.
  • 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/IMI/2/0O0O0O0O0O0O0O0O0O00000000%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 5

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00044e00.pdf
cde06ac2ac038fd6c8d9e458b10c8fdc9fab07390ef519b93d22520f5cda58c1		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x44E00 680448 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00000e00.pdf
4fb5b800182243ef915845d24b572b2a8db6fb3f88840a7c98f3a28ded4ec39c		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE00 958976 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006200.pdf
2cc23114e62a459f8a279f04662c82535dd81264c8501c20687fae8d220cb749		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6200 937472 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off0008aa00.pdf
5df7b9ff92a56eafa62e817dd00a7bf0e48cd5ae5729c7eaeb9776b2475eecc1		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x8AA00 394752 bytes

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