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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c42407154a5f3a86…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

255.9 KB First seen: 2022-06-14
MD5: 1b850a97138eb136de9c20ec51c1d43e SHA-1: 884411ad7a18e83681a4d64133eb9f8510d65a0d SHA-256: c42407154a5f3a86a657ae3be6c721efa4710728c184b8bef7e032ef32aa878a
220 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1559.001 Component Object Model Hijacking

The sample is a password-encrypted Office XLSX file. Heuristics indicate it contains an embedded OLE object, specifically an Equation Editor object, which is anomalous and indicative of CVE-2018-0798. This suggests the file is designed to exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code. The encryption and malformed nature of the OLE object further support its role as an exploit carrier.

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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