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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ceb72bb8211e1d12…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

415.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2026-06-15
MD5: 82f4c1118c02ec87cf40907706af0955 SHA-1: 1402db37d9d0024d47a7b4cc67d483c22474eefc SHA-256: ceb72bb8211e1d12e451246b845f62946da694d3eb1782b32950c425d8a5d0c0
70 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1059.005 Visual Basic

The critical heuristic firing indicates exploitation of CVE-2017-0199, which is used to download and execute a remote loader. The embedded URL points to a seemingly legitimate Gartner article, likely a lure. Although VBA macros are present, they contain no executable statements, suggesting the exploit is leveraged directly through OLE object manipulation rather than macro execution.

Heuristics 3

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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://0000025475341705/httpswww.gartner.comennewsroompress-releases2025-05-13-gartner-identifies-top-trends-shaping-the-future-of-cloud.php In document text (OLE body)

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
SHA-256: 7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673
Preview script
First 1,000 lines of the extracted script
Attribute VB_Name = "ThisWorkbook"
Attribute VB_Base = "0{00020819-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = False
Attribute VB_Customizable = True

Attribute VB_Name = "Sheet1"
Attribute VB_Base = "0{00020820-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = False
Attribute VB_Customizable = True

Attribute VB_Name = "Sheet2"
Attribute VB_Base = "0{00020820-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = False
Attribute VB_Customizable = True

Attribute VB_Name = "Sheet3"
Attribute VB_Base = "0{00020820-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = True
Attribute VB_TemplateDerived = False
Attribute VB_Customizable = True