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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a9dd5583f75c18a9…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

2.68 MB
MD5: 5714d08fd3c1bafec2098f9c46dc85b3 SHA-1: 6ef21529da5867a8662d1f230d8c5aa9bdb79e80 SHA-256: a9dd5583f75c18a915745ca35e8331a0bdd7b2fb4eb5f072430a97515d521632
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1566 Phishing

The file is an encrypted Office document, identified as a malicious exploit carrier. It contains an Equation Editor OLE object with anomalies indicative of CVE-2018-0798. This suggests the document is designed to exploit this vulnerability upon opening, likely to execute a secondary payload. No document body or scripts were extractable due to encryption, limiting further analysis of the specific payload delivery mechanism.

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.