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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 5fab48fefa779385…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

1.15 MB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-10-05
MD5: 14759390bc98bacca6ec550bd2906853 SHA-1: 198edd213cf4ab0b34f9ac74947000b4d63a942f SHA-256: 5fab48fefa7793850febe340712e30c30634ef0517881a613817c754ed15507b
312 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File Execution: Malicious File T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment T1204 User Execution

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 also exhibits parser evasion techniques, suggesting a deliberate attempt to deliver a malicious payload. No VBA macros were found to be executable.

Heuristics 9

  • 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 EDI) high SC_GETPC_CALL
    x86 GetPC stub (CALL $+5; POP EDI)
  • 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.
  • 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
b6daab42ea195bf6fb7ea1c4e54c5bd57054f4f0521f9baf9fdf13598ddc8084		 ole-package OLE Ole10Native stream: MBD000199D2/oLE10nAtIVE 1718 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off0006d000.pdf
e0d5f7778aa408c9f0363dc48cc6f0a50ace12465aa51ebb38354a1d599475a6		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6D000 762368 bytes
stream_004_off00005d60.bin
2998a126f4fa11ceb265371a5f7968ec18bc4692a32631a544232dc74040021f		 decompressed-pdf-stream PDF FlateDecoded stream at offset 0x5D60 252488 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00001200.pdf
5f2ec545e3bf11665f71a877aed125d2813da1c9b305a372a50dc1e647afabe0		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x1200 1204224 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006600.pdf
e7b34c920d744301b6152d9dcce92ac32f48046ea1cb8b82c6825b6159d2663e		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6600 1182720 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00029600.pdf
546215cadbf3a8af8e967a4daeb996ed83bd6d5dbe21a327782ec53bd9caa937		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x29600 1039360 bytes

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