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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4b4b048a48f6f228…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .XLSX

11.9 KB Created: 2025-04-16 03:58:07 UTC Authoring application: Microsoft Excel 12.0000
MD5: 4f724bdc658b763b89e3cb74020aa7b9 SHA-1: 7d6e1d6e50137c5a39fc1810e37d9aac5d48d5ba SHA-256: 4b4b048a48f6f2285f70dadae227d7e8ffc19ab4851db8936731fd0d365817af
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 User Execution: Malicious Link T1059.005 PowerShell

The sample is an Excel document containing an embedded OLE object, specifically an Equation Editor object. Heuristics indicate this object exploits CVE-2018-0798, a vulnerability in the Equation Editor. The document body contains a lure instructing the user to 'Enable editing', which is a common tactic to bypass macro security and execute malicious content. The embedded OLE object is the primary indicator of malicious activity.

Heuristics 4

  • Equation Editor OLE object high CVE related OLE_EQUATION_EDITOR
    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
    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.
  • Embedded OLE object medium OOXML_OLE_OBJECT
    Document contains an embedded OLE object
  • Macro/content-enable lure medium SE_ENABLE_LURE
    Document instructs the user to enable macros or editing — a common technique used by malware droppers to bypass Office macro security settings

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
ooxml_oleobject_00.bin
0835f05c8933d330c4886d15293818bb14ea4252845595ab770f98e77a74703c		 ooxml-ole-object OOXML embedded OLE part: xl/embeddings/oleObject1.bin 3584 bytes
ooxml_oleobject_00_ole10native_00.bin
07bf1aa784821ef8313b99a6e23184793edd7d45301f29419d38b576534fa19d		 ole-package OOXML xl/embeddings/oleObject1.bin Ole10Native stream: oLE10naTive 1503 bytes

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