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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 6786a8e6b2abe9fe…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

850.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-08-07
MD5: bebf99046a8c55e41d856134f3fcdd2d SHA-1: ebd6b822c2fe7feb352dee6602759d99389e0aaa SHA-256: 6786a8e6b2abe9fec6464c24a92e982e31d31ae8caabe927625b78b6f1a2c840
112 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample leverages the CVE-2017-0199 vulnerability, indicated by the OLE2Link/URL Moniker heuristic, to fetch and execute a remote payload from the provided URL. The embedded PDF also contains suspicious static findings, suggesting it's part of a multi-stage attack. No VBA macros were found to be executable, but the primary exploit mechanism is clear.

Heuristics 5

  • OLE2Link / URL Moniker → remote loader — CVE-2017-0199 critical CVE likely CVE_2017_0199
    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 high 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.
  • 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.
  • PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators info PDF_IMAGE_ONLY_LURE
    PDF has 1 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.
  • 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://192.210.255.49/RSS/has%20been%20verified.%20However%20JPG%20PDF%20doc%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23JPG%20PDF%20doc%20PDF%20JPG%20doc.doc

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off0002d200.pdf
ea061eb052bc6b245f6f59c9d17e01a988e0959c138da3ede4aabe0d958ed049		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x2D200 686080 bytes

Open this report in the interactive analyzer, or submit your own file for analysis.