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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d3e79a6d63bc9453…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

1.04 MB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: 5ed6746c0dee4578679cff7e09cb4baf SHA-1: b980f120d020b4b7a59d4fc071919ab42521dd37 SHA-256: d3e79a6d63bc94539a70f667d96c5a208cd5bf83fe517cff78d1dde8833af8c9
110 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an OLE2Link file that exploits CVE-2017-0199 via a URL moniker to download a remote loader. The embedded VBA macros are present but contain no executable statements, suggesting the exploit is triggered by the OLE structure itself. A secondary embedded PDF was also found with suspicious static findings, indicating a multi-stage attack. The primary IOC is the URL used for the remote loader.

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_off00099000.pdf
d979bb39526eaff2e3e190dc0e89e35a3cf499dece51cf594b9d25bf712cbb42		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x99000 468480 bytes

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