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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 778e84fab456349f…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

834.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-09-03
MD5: d3457cfb99ec4b92e018fc215eec78d6 SHA-1: d54d555220ceee449bb1735cd269d6ef38720949 SHA-256: 778e84fab456349fe5c466c16c931446fe3e7b2c76fd89d3a3372f9b75eaa5a1
252 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.005 Visual Basic T1059.001 PowerShell

The sample leverages the CVE-2017-0199 vulnerability, indicated by the OLE2Link heuristic, to act as a remote loader. It embeds a PDF document which itself contains a direct link to a payload. The VBA macros are present but appear to contain no executable statements, suggesting the primary malicious functionality is within the OLE and PDF components. The embedded PDF is designed to evade detection and directly link to a payload, likely initiating a multi-stage attack.

Heuristics 8

  • 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.
  • 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://192.3.108.47/0988/doc/O0O0O0O0O0000o00000oo0000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23000000ooo0o0o0o0000ooo0o00000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%230000000000.dOC
    • 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
fb1916686b608e547224601634c5d66aac3c932d47c0684d1e03c5657099a625		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE00 850944 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006400.pdf
d0e401d381e77e29b2266facc05d33dfedb4d35a818a9fbe8a2aaddac5ca3842		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6400 828928 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00029400.pdf
dfd03405382f6cb639e179c5926e57916a41c208973b56dc6a36698bb331ccfb		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x29400 685568 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00048000.pdf
55175d5ff12ec18d9e7781e4253fcc64668043a865153056c63f3db49490b64c		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x48000 559616 bytes

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