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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 58f9f64a0e2636d8…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

877.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-10-06
MD5: ba1b8c2db09c4f5a95c4a18aea28f565 SHA-1: f5357da7c6c0f8b4fd525dd24126398ab99f253d SHA-256: 58f9f64a0e2636d8418d5235f4d2bc423d3c4743776fb2a776cdebd12dad615c
332 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1559.002 Component Object Model Hijacking

The sample is an Excel file containing an embedded Equation Editor object, which is a known vector for exploiting CVE-2017-11882. This object contains a secondary PDF payload that includes a direct link to an executable or archive. The PDF itself exhibits evasion techniques and contains suspicious static findings, indicating a multi-stage attack designed to download and execute further malicious content.

Heuristics 10

  • Equation Editor Ole10Native payload — CVE-2017-11882 critical CVE likely CVE_2017_11882_EQUATION_OLE10NATIVE
    An embedded Microsoft Equation 3.0 object (CLSID 0002CE02-0000-0000-C000-000000000046) carries an Ole10Native packager stream instead of the normal Equation Native/MTEF data. This is the weaponized Equation Editor RCE delivery shape used by CVE-2017-11882 / CVE-2018-0802 maldocs. The payload (font-record overflow + shellcode) is frequently encrypted and the stream name case-scrambled to evade scanners, but an Equation object holding an Ole10Native stream has no benign use.
  • Equation Editor OLE object high CVE related OLE_EQUATION_EDITOR
    Contains Equation Editor object — related to CVE-2017-11882 / CVE-2018-0802 exploitation, but CLSID presence alone is not the malformed MTEF exploit primitive.
  • 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.
  • PDF link points directly to executable/archive payload critical PDF_DIRECT_PAYLOAD_LINK
    PDF contains a clickable HTTP(S) URI whose path ends in an executable, script, shortcut, disk image, or archive extension. Documents can legitimately link to installers, so this is a high-risk delivery indicator rather than a standalone exploit fingerprint.
  • x86 GetPC stub (CALL $+5; POP EDX) high SC_GETPC_CALL
    x86 GetPC stub (CALL $+5; POP EDX)
  • Clickable PDF combines external action with parser-evasion structure high PDF_ACTION_PARSER_EVASION
    PDF has an external clickable URI together with object graph or xref structures that make parsers disagree, such as divergent duplicate objects, parser divergence, or xref offset mismatch. That combination is stronger than a plain link: the document is both an outward-action carrier and a parser-confusion/evasion sample.
  • PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators medium 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 https://https://www.google.co.in/example.com
    • http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/

Extracted artifacts 7

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
ole10native_00.bin
ffa3da359b6f59970ed886666e19335ed3b484b1557eb427e0eab610a8f54219		 ole-package OLE Ole10Native stream: MBD0000D895/oLE10nAtIvE 1601 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off0003f600.pdf
280949f883c458e3ddbec5f3b373878b4010b9abd4b8161fc177a2fd180ed7db		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x3F600 638464 bytes
stream_004_off00005f60.bin
2998a126f4fa11ceb265371a5f7968ec18bc4692a32631a544232dc74040021f		 decompressed-pdf-stream PDF FlateDecoded stream at offset 0x5F60 252488 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00001000.pdf
9ee3201369e4ad3c23363b79e26bc6e84ee97d75ae25f99b39ebc159083cb73f		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x1000 893952 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006600.pdf
4fb2f4978a185234c1fdb80bb32b57ac4e001ae4f6cbffca28e21f7919d91946		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6600 871936 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off0005e400.pdf
7dcb7ff9ede00f877688bb0888f0a70fd331aee84b9fee352838c8556d1af629		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x5E400 512000 bytes

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