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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 7b9af60ca4de8ac1…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

850.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-08-07
MD5: 379f80b676bce36bfbb80299deb86f1d SHA-1: 274086d7ed850c1cd22be70e6ff34aa5344e0b14 SHA-256: 7b9af60ca4de8ac1ec0bedc2852772bce1da4f821a1a1f570f8a413f22b9ef18
112 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File: User Execution T1059.005 PowerShell T1059.001 PowerShell T1059.003 Windows Command Shell

The sample is an OLE file that exploits CVE-2017-0199, a known vulnerability for remote code execution. It contains an embedded URL that is likely used to download and execute a secondary payload. The embedded PDF also has suspicious findings, suggesting a multi-stage attack. No VBA macros were found to be executable, but the core 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://95.179.197.56/RSS/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%2300000000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%2300.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
117f20ddd1280d8b457aaed78760fc63bc064bd993aecc3366b04a9fb017b436		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x2D200 686080 bytes

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