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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c2a6f720a5be3c39…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

681.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-07-26
MD5: 91db61ceaa4d06e2d5a764cfce0c2660 SHA-1: c2103594d7fa8e14aedc74c9fca3531a6f660540 SHA-256: c2a6f720a5be3c399c4dad85e997648eb29c199a5a5ee15f4ae6dc32597b64e3
126 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.001 PowerShell

The critical heuristic firing for CVE-2017-0199 indicates that the sample attempts to exploit this vulnerability by downloading a payload from the URL http://192.3.216.144/PPL/AWSSDSWEHJERDUFYDYUERJHFDFUHUSDF%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23FJDFJSDJF%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23DHFJHDFJSDFHJSDF.DOC. The embedded PDF also contains suspicious static findings, suggesting it may be used as a lure or to further obfuscate the malicious activity.

Heuristics 5

  • OLE2Link / URL Moniker → remote loader — CVE-2017-0199 critical CVE likely CVE_2017_0199
    Document contains an embedded OLE link object whose URL Moniker points to a remote URL. When the host file is opened, Office follows the link, downloads the URL, and processes the response based on its Content-Type (HTA -> mshta.exe, RTF → Word, etc.) — the documented CVE-2017-0199 primitive. The URL extension is not a reliable filter; servers can return different payloads to Office's user agent.
  • Secondary embedded PDF body has suspicious static findings critical POLYGLOT_CHILD_PDF_STATIC_TRIAGE
    A valid PDF body was found at a nonzero offset inside another container and its carved contents matched PDF exploit or lure heuristics. This catches polyglots where the top-level magic routes to ZIP/OLE while a PDF reader or downstream parser opens the hidden PDF payload.
  • PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators info PDF_IMAGE_ONLY_LURE
    PDF has 2 image XObject(s) and the content stream contains no text-emitting operators (BT/ET, Tj, TJ, ', ") in either raw bytes or decompressed streams — this is the screenshot-as-PDF pattern used to bypass text-based scanners and to deliver instructions purely through rendered pixels. It is informational unless paired with invisible links or risky URI context.
  • Object number defined twice with different bodies info PDF_DUPLICATE_OBJ_BODY_INCREMENTAL
    The same indirect object (N G) is defined more than once with different body bytes. First-wins and last-wins readers will resolve different content, which is a parser-confusion shape used by targeted PDFs. Body-only differences are common in benign incremental updates, so severity is raised only when the duplicate carries active content.
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL http://192.3.216.144/PPL/AWSSDSWEHJERDUFYDYUERJHFDFUHUSDF%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23FJDFJSDJF%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23DHFJHDFJSDFHJSDF.DOC
    • http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/

Extracted artifacts 4

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
polyglot_child_pdf_off00001a00.pdf
c449707bd992d0cdfefc75c2ca59d354873206b48a2eff098310400dadd9fdf0
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x1A00 691200 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006e00.pdf
6ca5d36d0d2671facc000ff6f7fac23c06a8a245066b6562bc95424f672fc2e0
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6E00 669696 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00015a00.pdf
fa10009583703d4d9b44e1c82ac248454b793b79e280507c147fae387c4df0e2
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x15A00 609280 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00025a00.pdf
ef2052a8a31c9506bcb29b5e3ed9d19e7d9cc3c6bd155bd9da9e7afd19b75081
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x25A00 543744 bytes