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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 970c5c7c04d9f838…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

2.42 MB
MD5: 01a88cf9ab93b715387c2f3ba777cf6e SHA-1: 19fad6f30f2b31fec8708a9897c630f8065f61a5 SHA-256: 970c5c7c04d9f838897c5914b840f40c0bf1dbf61503ba093a68552336952345
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1566 Phishing T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter

The sample is an encrypted OOXML file that contains an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. Heuristics indicate this object is anomalous and likely carries a payload, exploiting CVE-2018-0798. The encrypted nature of the document prevents further analysis of the document body, but the presence of the exploit carrier strongly suggests a malicious intent to execute arbitrary code.

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.
  • 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 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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