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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c8952084633f0a17…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

327.5 KB
MD5: 7ba3a6decef445850f7ee9d091198a77 SHA-1: 96f5debdfaf059232c1a735f4f4164410a5347d4 SHA-256: c8952084633f0a1766e029168a40c195fa03403a3f360960ec771c5c508e3662
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1559.001 Component Object Model

The sample is a password-encrypted XLSX file containing an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. This object exhibits anomalies consistent with CVE-2018-0798, indicating it's likely an exploit carrier. The presence of the Equation Editor OLE object and the specific CVE firing strongly suggest exploitation for client execution.

Heuristics 5

  • 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.
  • 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-128)).
  • 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.