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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d827f9ab7ff039c6…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

789.5 KB
MD5: 2e5a53918e45d29b324a5802d739f59d SHA-1: c3b3d0b00706341317b6e6002c21904897bff3b6 SHA-256: d827f9ab7ff039c62b2e1070946ce3e9e35e892b3094220380fb84a4455b6a20
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1204.001 Malicious Link: Malicious Link T1559 Component Object Model Hijacking T1559.001 Component Object Model Hijacking: Component Object Model Hijacking

The sample is an encrypted Office document that contains an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. Heuristics indicate that this object is anomalous and likely exploits CVE-2018-0798, a vulnerability in Equation Editor. The document is also encrypted with a default password, suggesting it's a common exploit carrier. The primary attack vector appears to be leveraging the Equation Editor vulnerability to execute a malicious payload.

Heuristics 4

  • 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.
  • 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.