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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 7773e412a1f8d42b…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

178.2 KB
MD5: 5b91223530b0e051b435c803908d3261 SHA-1: 2474a0a758f38c0b2b13f6aed3ec7996cdd0d1c1 SHA-256: 7773e412a1f8d42bc043b02ed8cf71af5005aacbf887945503daaa8ff210157a
220 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample is a password-encrypted Excel file containing an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. Heuristics indicate this object is an exploit carrier for CVE-2018-0798, a vulnerability in Equation Editor. The file is also flagged as malformed and encrypted, suggesting it's designed to bypass initial detection and deliver a secondary payload. No document body or scripts were extracted, but the presence of the exploit carrier is sufficient evidence of malicious intent.

Heuristics 6

  • Equation Editor OLE object high CVE related OLE_EQUATION_EDITOR
    Default-encrypted OOXML embedded OLE object xl/embeddings/oleObject1.bin contains the Equation Editor CLSID, the legacy component exploited by CVE-2017-11882, CVE-2018-0802, and CVE-2018-0798.
  • CVE-2018-0798 — anomalous Equation Editor native stream high CVE likely CVE_2018_0798_EQUATION_NATIVE_ANOMALY
    Default-encrypted OOXML contains embedded Equation Editor data with anomalous native stream bytes consistent with a CVE-2018-0798-style exploit. This is treated as likely CVE evidence because the Equation object is malformed and payload-like.
  • Encrypted Office package with CFB FAT corruption critical OLE_ENCRYPTED_AND_MALFORMED
    Encrypted-package shape co-occurs with FAT-chain corruption — the documented combined evasion form.
  • Default-encrypted OOXML exploit carrier layout high OOXML_ENCRYPTED_EXPLOIT_CARRIER_SHAPE
    Default-password encrypted OOXML package contains embedded OLE object parts and additional activation/decoy parts. This layout is common in malicious Excel exploit delivery and requires inspecting the decrypted package.
  • Office document is password-encrypted medium OFFICE_ENCRYPTED_PACKAGE
    OLE container holds MS-OFFCRYPTO encrypted package (Standard Encryption (Office 2007, AES)).
  • Office OOXML encrypted with default VelvetSweatshop password medium OFFICE_DEFAULT_PASSWORD_ENCRYPTED_OOXML
    OLE EncryptedPackage decrypts with Excel's built-in VelvetSweatshop password. Office opens this transparently, and malware uses it to hide OOXML exploit parts from scanners that only inspect the outer OLE container.

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