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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 73adae3f877abfaf…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

520.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-08-14
MD5: 1f1e0606452a361d57e2707d98fce02f SHA-1: 63d86ba311dc1daa8639064b178b5cde45e71d29 SHA-256: 73adae3f877abfaf902e6616630b98c70b1e344b8dd9d1584ce3958ee3fc74cd
142 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an Excel file that exploits CVE-2017-0199, a known vulnerability for remote code execution. It attempts to download a malicious DOC file from the URL http://192.210.175.4/RPO/....DOC. The embedded PDF also contains suspicious findings, indicating a multi-stage attack. No VBA macros were found to be executable, but the primary exploit vector is clear.

Heuristics 7

  • 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 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.
  • 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.
  • External URI low PDF_URI
    PDF contains an external URL action
  • 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.
  • 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://192.210.175.4/RPO/000000000000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23000000000000000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%2300000000000OO0O0O000OOO0.DOC
    • http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/
    • https://docs.microsoft.com/typography/abouthttp://lucasfonts.comMicrosoft
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License
    • http://crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/MicrosoftTimeStampPCA.crl0X
    • http://www.microsoft.com/pki/certs/MicrosoftTimeStampPCA.crt0
    • http://www.microsoft.com/pkiops/crl/MicCodSigPCA2011_2011-07-08.crl0a
    • http://www.microsoft.com/pkiops/certs/MicCodSigPCA2011_2011-07-08.crt0
    • http://crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/microsoftrootcert.crl0T
    • http://www.microsoft.com/pki/certs/MicrosoftRootCert.crt0
    • http://crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/MicRooCerAut2011_2011_03_22.crl0^
    • http://www.microsoft.com/pki/certs/MicRooCerAut2011_2011_03_22.crt0��
    • http://www.microsoft.com/pkiops/docs/primarycps.htm0@
    • http://www.microsoft.com/Typography
    • http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ctfontshttp://www.fonts.comMicrosoft
    • http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/default.aspx

Extracted artifacts 5

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
stream_005_off00004d68.bin
3a04212482833b3774fe0ffc48e74422d1c2095edcf5dc004e726e78a7f02320		 decompressed-pdf-stream PDF FlateDecoded stream at offset 0x4D68 157856 bytes
stream_008_off0001de20.bin
a331f0130458436cbeafe3d7e8403baa56e95a2f9a60704ce8b1a4e689f30906		 decompressed-pdf-stream PDF FlateDecoded stream at offset 0x1DE20 108760 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off0002ce00.pdf
fa42d04f77403418011648ed1648959f281a1c13f6a63a42c838077e988673f5		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x2CE00 348672 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00057400.pdf
4023bfc7984633ba69db9339ff853403afc88679ff159a7f3d002543f79c4863		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x57400 175104 bytes

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