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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 bfa85c9b2237a1ed…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

1.37 MB
MD5: 1a1db4e2e92cfb5334cbcd627d8394a7 SHA-1: 3b357e229f364a4ceca8cd743e9c433994e9d402 SHA-256: bfa85c9b2237a1ed4b34811803e878096cfa639b22e7c29b4c407733bcc3996a
220 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1566 Phishing T1204.001 Malicious Link: Malicious File T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample is a password-encrypted Excel file that leverages an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. This specific configuration is a strong indicator of an exploit carrier, particularly for CVE-2018-0798. The encryption and malformed structure suggest an attempt to evade static analysis and deliver a malicious payload upon successful exploitation of the Equation Editor vulnerability.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • Encrypted Office package with CFB FAT corruption critical OLE_ENCRYPTED_AND_MALFORMED
    Encrypted-package shape co-occurs with FAT-chain corruption — the documented combined evasion form.
  • 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.

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