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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 57b14906e28d80d4…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

403.5 KB
MD5: 51a077750b69df5dba0c8e88e092e01b SHA-1: 1b1d784985f560558a2078023d8e03532ccecd72 SHA-256: 57b14906e28d80d4d927ef07cf61bff398a2d19e00f1a6baa736a201297cd226
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 that contains an Equation Editor OLE object. Heuristics indicate exploitation of CVE-2018-0798 via anomalous Equation Editor native stream, suggesting it's an exploit carrier. The default encryption and presence of OLE objects point towards a malicious intent to execute code.

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.