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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a2bf64f9550487c9…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

237.5 KB First seen: 2022-07-12
MD5: ce715f9ac24dfb758644e8cf6ab97c42 SHA-1: eeecbe772d91c6f28a991ee78e12b20e77af166a SHA-256: a2bf64f9550487c93e4166de3a40d1cbb85367197f2aef6d3861ac72a84ee5c8
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1204.002 Malicious Link: Malicious File T1559 Component Object Model Hijacking T1559.001 Component Object Model Hijacking: Component Object Model

The file is a password-encrypted Excel spreadsheet containing embedded OLE objects, specifically identified as an Equation Editor object. High-confidence heuristics indicate exploitation of CVE-2018-0798 through an anomalous Equation Editor native stream within one of these OLE objects. This suggests the file is designed to deliver a payload by exploiting this known vulnerability.

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.
  • Office document is password-encrypted medium OFFICE_ENCRYPTED_PACKAGE
    OLE container holds MS-OFFCRYPTO encrypted package (Standard Encryption (Office 2007, AES)).
  • 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.