Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis — malicious · 68801ab5fd9a47e1

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

957.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel

MD5: 535714d73b7e6b383bcb6b7504e12e0f SHA-1: ab4161144d73a38345f0b1d3a27e5a75bcf56592 SHA-256: 68801ab5fd9a47e1de8430e8e8e48648eb796d2c3d409a284792064a48121f36

112 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK

T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample is an Excel file that exploits CVE-2017-0199 via an OLE2Link object to download a remote loader from the URL https://dealc.me/acSHqX. Additionally, a secondary embedded PDF was found with suspicious static findings, suggesting a multi-stage attack. The VBA macros themselves do not contain executable statements, 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 https://dealc.me/acSHqX

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

Filename	Kind	Source	Size
`macros.bas` `7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673`	vba-macro	oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source)	1206 bytes
`polyglot_child_pdf_off00083800.pdf` `5489cd2b7904c37ff9db4bb456ce301ed45b2a324412346b305fa9ff9086dff3`	polyglot-child-pdf	Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x83800	441344 bytes

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