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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 8fdde5e63efb3c79…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

181.5 KB First seen: 2022-06-15
MD5: bace94963844c02bcd54550df28107b0 SHA-1: f0b2f7d61f24f15c6800f891b782c1bf316ab1a8 SHA-256: 8fdde5e63efb3c793c59508b123454d858ce98db26d1e4be2ed80ecf8b67b2e0
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1204.001 Malicious Link: Malicious File T1559 Component Object Model Hijacking T1559.001 Component Object Model Hijacking: Component Object Model Hijacking

The sample is an Office document that is password-encrypted, a common technique to evade static analysis. High-severity heuristics indicate the presence of an Equation Editor OLE object, specifically triggering CVE-2018-0798. This suggests the document is designed to exploit a vulnerability within the Equation Editor component to execute arbitrary code, likely leading to the download and execution of a second-stage payload.

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.
  • 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.
  • 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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