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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9b317b3cc79b5ccc…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

828.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-09-13
MD5: eff633eac574234568e82dcaabd855c9 SHA-1: 8feab8823907f8b19e7d3f3048e136750d8262de SHA-256: 9b317b3cc79b5cccc8988087a5d37011e7cf7fc57456939f1c51f41074e79140
252 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.005 Visual Basic T1071.001 Web Protocols

The sample is an OLE file that exploits CVE-2017-0199 via a URL moniker to load a remote payload. It contains an embedded PDF which itself has suspicious links and is structured to evade parsers. The VBA macros are present but do not contain executable statements, suggesting the primary malicious functionality is within the OLE structure and the embedded PDF.

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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators medium 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.
  • 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://mub.me/ShGA
    • 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 6

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
stream_003_off00005f60.bin
2998a126f4fa11ceb265371a5f7968ec18bc4692a32631a544232dc74040021f		 decompressed-pdf-stream PDF FlateDecoded stream at offset 0x5F60 252488 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00000e00.pdf
8179dbe9f875446e30d898bff51919a644942fdea23eac614669fd48d1d5c790		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE00 844800 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006400.pdf
dcda231d98374698dc2260b1bc9ce112955e6bd858f84101d88b3ca2df192f0d		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6400 822784 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00029400.pdf
06d12e65682c9fc5804f31855dddcf7f94adc2c784960735bea90b70d4a19b48		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x29400 679424 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00048000.pdf
080046dfa7cd4e55dcfc7aac599bcdacba464a60d3d4be9c44a5e896001ed679		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x48000 553472 bytes

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