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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 6052ad2c4b2655cc…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

825.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-09-18
MD5: d08130b13b6cfa2ff169deb03a7b1008 SHA-1: 6bf4e708d05f086e78257126754494f2055affa0 SHA-256: 6052ad2c4b2655cc24f30a1d6ca1369d8e04324143a12ded494eb906018d6a08
252 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.005 Visual Basic

The sample is a weaponized OLE file exploiting CVE-2017-0199 via a URL moniker to download and execute a secondary payload, identified as TiWorker.hta. The embedded PDF also contains a direct link to a payload, further indicating malicious intent. No VBA macros were found to be executable, but the overall structure points to a downloader or initial access mechanism.

Heuristics 8

  • OLE2Link / URL Moniker weaponized URL — CVE-2017-0199 critical CVE exact CVE_2017_0199_WEAPONIZED_URL
    Document contains an embedded OLE link object whose URL Moniker points to a remote URL. When the host file is opened, Office follows the link, downloads the URL, and processes the response based on its Content-Type (HTA -> mshta.exe, RTF → Word, etc.) — the documented CVE-2017-0199 primitive. The URL extension is not a reliable filter; servers can return different payloads to Office's user agent.
  • 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.
  • 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 http://192.3.108.47/399/4/TiWorker.hta
    • 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 6

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
stream_003_off00005f60.bin
2998a126f4fa11ceb265371a5f7968ec18bc4692a32631a544232dc74040021f		 decompressed-pdf-stream PDF FlateDecoded stream at offset 0x5F60 252488 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00000e00.pdf
a0156cecdc4f647f345bb13a151e04b4a8024b9c0842433b2819ef9771bf96fc		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE00 841728 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006400.pdf
51890d87f957d7af504e93f3a0d98a418b5ee4910fa7ffc135c450fbf384de0f		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6400 819712 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00029400.pdf
b6998726d3ec56d4ee4b478546e9d527de81c8da14c56fc71c8cce786f6af5ad		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x29400 676352 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00048000.pdf
8004d0c4443b21b640fb4bc61ead3f2262e9feaa894f682598d93c6b31fcdbac		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x48000 550400 bytes

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