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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 82737660638921bf…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

1.17 MB
MD5: 9ae3b1aa2c80f4e12e33569d7b5839df SHA-1: 8579f018a10f93cedbb73369fb8c7b66416d9846 SHA-256: 82737660638921bf4d3e82bf4c059ec3cb0b61bd988365572bd4207b87ceb060
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The sample is a password-encrypted Excel spreadsheet containing an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. This object exhibits anomalies suggesting it carries a malicious payload, likely exploiting a known vulnerability in Equation Editor for client execution. The presence of embedded OLE objects indicates it was likely delivered as a spearphishing attachment.

Heuristics 5

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Equation Editor object carries payload-like Ole10Native stream high OLE_EQUATION_OLE10NATIVE_PAYLOAD_ANOMALY
    Default-encrypted OOXML embedded OLE object declares the Equation Editor CLSID but stores a large high-entropy Ole10Native stream with malformed package sizing. This is exploit-shaped Equation/OLE payload evidence.
  • Office document is password-encrypted medium OFFICE_ENCRYPTED_PACKAGE
    OLE container holds MS-OFFCRYPTO encrypted package (Standard Encryption (Office 2007+, AES-128)).
  • 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.