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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a27d8a6977f46367…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

862.5 KB
MD5: 0db8aceb5fdf7f22bc31682726c5b071 SHA-1: fa5814cab189e1dc9915e9a61d48223e3005561a SHA-256: a27d8a6977f46367c42888a9afd209ace864e96f948d93acf68e9afd84b3b9dc
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1559.001 Component Object Model Hijacking

The sample is an encrypted OOXML file identified as an exploit carrier. It contains an embedded Equation Editor OLE object that exhibits anomalies consistent with CVE-2018-0798. This indicates the file is designed to exploit a vulnerability in the Equation Editor to execute arbitrary code.

Heuristics 4

  • 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 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.