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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d54bd87301e1b34b…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

2.36 MB
MD5: 371a15f961d3ec1f7d2cd4e730c88c5d SHA-1: 872e109ff50053f9c99d53700a7d6946b4bc477e SHA-256: d54bd87301e1b34b41cba4a43468ca810dccccdf8c8a3a7912508f210c25fa88
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 Malicious File

The file is an encrypted Office XLSX document that contains an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. Heuristics indicate this object is anomalous and carries a payload, specifically triggering CVE-2018-0798. The encryption with a default password further suggests a malicious intent to obscure the exploit carrier. The primary attack vector is likely a spearphishing attachment leveraging this exploit.

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.
  • Equation Editor object carries payload-like Ole10Native stream high OLE_EQUATION_OLE10NATIVE_PAYLOAD_ANOMALY
    Default-encrypted OOXML embedded OLE object declares the Equation Editor CLSID but stores a large high-entropy Ole10Native stream with malformed package sizing. This is exploit-shaped Equation/OLE payload evidence.
  • 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.