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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 5050aa9f14ee4ec9…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

487.0 KB
MD5: 342a4c4974fff373668c6f124a5178db SHA-1: dbd04db8a8755b01959a3bfb5089bd8f74edc834 SHA-256: 5050aa9f14ee4ec918a09d27545b9dafe4e31c24da294845c2cbb5d927f5fa27
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample is an encrypted OOXML file containing an Equation Editor OLE object. Heuristics indicate exploitation of CVE-2018-0798 via an anomalous Equation Editor native stream. This suggests the file is designed to exploit a vulnerability in the Equation Editor component to achieve code execution.

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.