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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d6dfc02e07a9e04a…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

2.56 MB
MD5: badc181c6cfebba2c4daa34ca7aa5f22 SHA-1: 16d73e7c7636914391da4bbffbb00e905a7ce761 SHA-256: d6dfc02e07a9e04a23cf942c7e29aaea77cf614f9ee97c8ed52723d3c858c050
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample is an encrypted OOXML file that contains an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. Heuristics indicate exploitation of CVE-2018-0798 via an anomalous Equation Editor native stream, which is known to be used for delivering malicious payloads. The encrypted nature of the document prevents direct analysis of its content, but the presence of the exploit carrier strongly suggests it's designed to execute arbitrary code.

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.

Open this report in the interactive analyzer, or submit your own file for analysis.