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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c5d67cc420fad6d8…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

870.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 15c448a26928257138ca0c73b90be4eb SHA-1: 74e4cec2cd1f6849016580c0ee21c4e44c9ded9f SHA-256: c5d67cc420fad6d89827e7d4aeb5c4dfdcf18e87c2d9b4eefd25cb4e4b689bdc
110 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The critical heuristic firing for CVE-2017-0199 indicates that the OLE file uses a URL moniker to load a remote resource. The embedded PDF, identified as a lure, further suggests a social engineering pretext. The VBA macros, though not directly executable, are part of the overall malicious structure. The primary IOC is the URL used for payload delivery.

Heuristics 4

  • 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.

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
93574750f2f561ffcfdd7c424d81585420e87b5df9f8375a4cd0eff701fa77de
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE00 887296 bytes