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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9a6a29e35db6e67d…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

1.05 MB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-08-08
MD5: bf6599840c58c54dbca625ffb0ab7854 SHA-1: d2332cd5077c7d919a9eb70fd7ae5b52055fceb9 SHA-256: 9a6a29e35db6e67dd531e8d1625beac0d1f83ab6694aa2a00d4759ad33e6d176
392 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment

The file is an Excel spreadsheet containing an embedded Equation Editor object that exploits CVE-2017-11882. This object is used to deliver a secondary PDF payload which contains a direct link to a payload. The ClamAV detection name 'Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0' further supports its downloader functionality.

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
6656c2aee047013fc66cba0e656ce6ed6b1a771b453e9824b614a1c37ae552df
ole-package OLE Ole10Native stream: MBD0008BE01/OLE10naTIvE 1382 bytes
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
7a7a5bb63af430ea95da3e9910c20b8ab99cfd72f2483f40e5157ae1a0851997
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x1000 1093120 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0
Obfuscation or payload: unlikely
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006200.pdf
4e9ddbdb5ef9e47894de1d437e58569dff499926c4f6d6b9f19a482dd8412b61
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6200 1072128 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0
Obfuscation or payload: unlikely
polyglot_child_pdf_off0000e400.pdf
ea1bf45e8fcaf26b04932ff3d155bf575d7da0f8bbff3523858f38339d013406
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE400 1038848 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0
Obfuscation or payload: unlikely
polyglot_child_pdf_off0002d000.pdf
d85e840ea7b087390208e0f928f2924907bcfd37492b1b35e18745ba06ab805a
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x2D000 912896 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Xls.Downloader.94c25b356b5a6cac-9978798-0
Obfuscation or payload: unlikely