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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a2bfcc72f1a7a817…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

2.16 MB
MD5: d7928e685d37d907d102cecdf3d3ce8b SHA-1: 3404ab865cdfb6c4a71151f5ae7bd17b92206885 SHA-256: a2bfcc72f1a7a817323c32d758b45716541e4c3a7e33a7d3939638a6a2e8eaaa
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1566 Phishing T1204.002 Malicious File T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter

The sample is an encrypted Office document that contains an Equation Editor OLE object. Heuristics indicate that this object is anomalous and carries a payload, specifically triggering CVE-2018-0798. This suggests the document is designed to exploit this vulnerability upon opening to deliver a malicious payload.

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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