Formbook — Office (OLE) / .XLSX malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d189beb2b0b01967…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

187.3 KB First seen: 2022-02-15
MD5: 889383aac100c91282372af64f3aa18c SHA-1: 93effc73c5c95d4469722c3bc90d2ac84f899cb8 SHA-256: d189beb2b0b019678ac47f9f73da435456b6d95e2ac4cb83c71eb2915290835f
280 Risk Score

Malware Insights

Formbook · confidence 95%

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

This Office document is password-encrypted and contains an embedded Equation Editor OLE object, which is a known carrier for exploits like CVE-2018-0798. The ClamAV detection explicitly identifies it as 'Doc.Downloader.Formbook', indicating its role as a downloader for the Formbook malware family. The exploitation of Equation Editor and the encrypted nature of the document point to a sophisticated delivery mechanism designed to evade initial detection.

Heuristics 7

  • 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.
  • ClamAV: Doc.Downloader.Formbook-bc97c1e0c33c3c93-9951465-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Doc.Downloader.Formbook-bc97c1e0c33c3c93-9951465-0
  • 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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