Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0 — Office (OLE) / .XLS malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 931a165f078e6269…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

1.27 MB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-08-15
MD5: a60d30aea7ef54e9e0b3da2674bfbb99 SHA-1: 97b320e4b0d24099d17a0a5a22af9b3a9b12397a SHA-256: 931a165f078e6269fbdfb222ec7fa84e9102c7fe91781c355e61cd45bc58a7f5
392 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0 · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File T1566.002 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment

The file is an XLS document containing an embedded Equation Editor object that exploits CVE-2017-11882. This object contains a secondary PDF payload which, in turn, has a direct link to an executable payload. The ClamAV detection name 'Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0' indicates a downloader functionality, likely facilitated by the embedded PDF. The embedded URL 'https://https://www.google.co.in/example.com' is the most critical IOC for further investigation.

Heuristics 10

  • Equation Editor Ole10Native payload — CVE-2017-11882 critical CVE likely CVE_2017_11882_EQUATION_OLE10NATIVE
    An embedded Microsoft Equation 3.0 object (CLSID 0002CE02-0000-0000-C000-000000000046) carries an Ole10Native packager stream instead of the normal Equation Native/MTEF data. This is the weaponized Equation Editor RCE delivery shape used by CVE-2017-11882 / CVE-2018-0802 maldocs. The payload (font-record overflow + shellcode) is frequently encrypted and the stream name case-scrambled to evade scanners, but an Equation object holding an Ole10Native stream has no benign use.
  • Equation Editor OLE object high CVE related OLE_EQUATION_EDITOR
    Contains Equation Editor object — related to CVE-2017-11882 / CVE-2018-0802 exploitation, but CLSID presence alone is not the malformed MTEF exploit 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.
  • 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.
  • ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0
  • ClamAV detection on extracted artifact critical EXTRACTED_FILE_CLAMAV
    ClamAV flagged at least one file extracted from inside this sample. Even when the wrapping document carries no AV detection of its own, a hit on the carved artifact is a strong indicator the sample is a delivery vehicle.
  • 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.
  • 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 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 8

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673
vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
ole10native_00.bin
12767113ee5ae9d44306d97fe98be64da7359e85d4c6e20477b2cb5e8855c339
ole-package OLE Ole10Native stream: MBD005DFE03/olE10NaTIVe 1872 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00076c00.pdf
cfaad611716c94bd759496242d9ba39ac6dd676fbea055b8787dfd4c4fcf60c0
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x76C00 843776 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0
Obfuscation or payload: unlikely
font_00_sfnt_off0000817d.bin
68d167e68895a344f3603a4efd0d8438eb8fdebe759cee48f2b4adf75c76c961
pdf-font-stream PDF embedded font (sfnt) at offset 0x817D 12100 bytes
font_01_sfnt_off00009f95.bin
50551000b9f90b3f445ee94749557d9ddf96697a74984b3ccf3d2bae66910750
pdf-font-stream PDF embedded font (sfnt) at offset 0x9F95 15820 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00001000.pdf
3e6c14afc8aecc0a721966f28a809e3a661675fdb15150f58f9c6d584130c89e
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x1000 1326080 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0
Obfuscation or payload: unlikely
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006200.pdf
37487cdb4f6d21892b7c1c2152e42839ca4a05266d2dce5f92e4354b92fa1a43
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6200 1305088 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0
Obfuscation or payload: unlikely
polyglot_child_pdf_off0000e600.pdf
1c7b22a23f760cff5b5afc57d681b92d95c08041e3cf2845f9545bd19683f159
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE600 1271296 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0
Obfuscation or payload: unlikely