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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 89b872366486882d…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

1.39 MB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-08-17
MD5: 74c8f8643c29d8d19becd545eee7a48c SHA-1: afaf8d9c8b504333a2824fcd18f1fbc87da6c48a SHA-256: 89b872366486882d0add3f52b59a244ccb38c30becf7c7fc238b2aa9a674ad93
182 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an OLE file that exploits CVE-2017-0199 via a URL moniker to download a remote payload from http://104.168.46.25/FNF/3/....dOC. Additionally, it contains embedded PDF content that is related to CVE-2023-26369, suggesting a multi-stage attack. No VBA macros were found to be executable, but the presence of the CVE-2017-0199 exploit is a strong indicator of malicious intent.

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.
  • TrueType bitmap font + active content — CVE-2023-26369 related high CVE related PDF_CVE_2023_26369_RELATED
    PDF embeds a TrueType font with bitmap tables (EBDT/sbix/CBDT) alongside exploit delivery indicators — CVE-2023-26369 exploits the sfac_GetSbitBitmap function in Adobe's libCoolType for arbitrary code execution. This CVE was actively exploited in the wild, but this rule does not validate the malformed EBLC/EBDT primitive.
  • 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 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.
  • 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://104.168.46.25/FNF/3/0000Oo0oOOOO0o0ooO0Oo0o0o000000000%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.dOC
    • http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    • 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 7

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_off000b3200.pdf
41567c0b3b9b24e5b6be8ac23b5065788e4eca6d0a4a19e3a131df1efeb84861
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xB3200 727552 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00000e00.pdf
d97e7c119dd9243805301900814174390618808d116f8fbb603db7bc39a2f1cb
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE00 1457664 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00007000.pdf
081f23f9a54728b7df493747c5d956764a01808c21f678fba592c30bb6234032
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x7000 1432576 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off000dda00.pdf
9b7b549b9a848f0b61d4de82ff97c633e79cc9822439f7485239afde25bd7ae2
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xDDA00 553472 bytes