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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c36edbf6ff6981ab…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

146.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-10-02
MD5: 3c80a3404a12b03596de173b7c2395d8 SHA-1: 0f2747a0d918456486c729f6f47f41b1523c7ff0 SHA-256: c36edbf6ff6981ab06c2bebafef7340da2c28565751b4e1e6bedb4cd02f992b4
112 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.005 Visual Basic

The sample is an OLE file that exploits CVE-2017-0199 via a URL moniker to download a remote document. The embedded URL points to a .dOC file, suggesting a downloader for a second-stage payload. The presence of an embedded PDF with suspicious findings further indicates a multi-stage attack. No VBA macros were found to be executable, but the exploit itself is the primary mechanism.

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 high 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.
  • VBA project contains no executable statements low OLE_VBA_MACROS
    Document contains a VBA project, but extracted modules only contain attributes/options/comments and no executable statements.
  • PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators info PDF_IMAGE_ONLY_LURE
    PDF has 1 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.
  • 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://103.182.16.23/zwww/zw/i0iooi0i0IOI0IOI0i0ioioi0I0I0IIOII0OI0I0IOI0I0OI0I0IOI0OI0I0OI0IOI0I0OI0I0%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%2300000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23000000000.dOC

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00000e00.pdf
361a85837fa0b8e6935b9e14c6665ee35dd4e0b80636d134bbb8a56b556dc587		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE00 146432 bytes

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