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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 5c1201219fb260b6…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

324.6 KB Created: 1996-12-17 01:32:42 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 7ef8965b2cdabf58f0b81765e2b5d24a SHA-1: 2ab4dcf4e9c73961d7c9d0f6d9e5d29590c7614e SHA-256: 5c1201219fb260b615885cd2d62e8dd1216f65f7c821221fa5495e765b277580
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The file is identified as malicious due to critical heuristic firings indicating the exploitation of CVE-2009-3129, a known vulnerability in Microsoft Excel. This exploit likely allows for the execution of arbitrary code, potentially leading to the download and execution of a secondary payload. The large amount of slack space and appended payload bytes further support this conclusion.

Heuristics 3

  • CVE-2009-3129 — Excel FEATHEADER record overflow critical CVE exact CVE_2009_3129
    Workbook BIFF stream contains a FEATHEADER (Feature Header) record with anomalous size (record_size=22, isf=4, cbHdrData=4). Legitimate FEATHEADER records are tiny (<100 bytes) and carry cbHdrData values that fit in the record body; the value here is the documented CVE-2009-3129 exploit primitive — cbHdrData drives a memcpy with attacker-controlled size, leading to memory corruption and code execution in Excel 2007/2003.
  • OLE document has large unaccounted-for region high OLE_SLACK_ANOMALY
    OLE file is 332,433 bytes but its declared streams total only 24,565 bytes — 307,868 bytes (93%) live in unallocated sector slack. This is the canonical hiding place for pre-macro-era Office exploit payloads (XOR-encoded shellcode reached via a parser pointer-corruption bug in the document structure).
  • OLE file has appended executable-looking payload bytes high OLE_APPENDED_PAYLOAD
    OLE compound file contains a large high-entropy region beyond the declared major streams and that region includes shellcode, PE, or loader API markers. This is a payload-carrier signal, not a specific CVE attribution by itself.