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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 dc045f955788a869…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

825.5 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-09-22
MD5: 4057fa394d721ff19f725206f27b1b20 SHA-1: 8efbbd62cb6470d3a036d96f6e4c1dde00111b55 SHA-256: dc045f955788a869d725560948fd929d179efe571bcaf0afa43dfb50565270e8
252 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an OLE file that exploits CVE-2017-0199 via a URL moniker to load a remote resource. It also embeds a PDF which contains a direct link to a payload. The VBA macros are present but do not contain executable statements, suggesting they are not the primary infection vector. The embedded PDF's structure and direct payload link indicate a sophisticated dropper mechanism.

Heuristics 8

  • 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 critical 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.
  • PDF link points directly to executable/archive payload critical PDF_DIRECT_PAYLOAD_LINK
    PDF contains a clickable HTTP(S) URI whose path ends in an executable, script, shortcut, disk image, or archive extension. Documents can legitimately link to installers, so this is a high-risk delivery indicator rather than a standalone exploit fingerprint.
  • Clickable PDF combines external action with parser-evasion structure high PDF_ACTION_PARSER_EVASION
    PDF has an external clickable URI together with object graph or xref structures that make parsers disagree, such as divergent duplicate objects, parser divergence, or xref offset mismatch. That combination is stronger than a plain link: the document is both an outward-action carrier and a parser-confusion/evasion sample.
  • PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators medium PDF_IMAGE_ONLY_LURE
    PDF has 2 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.
  • 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.
  • Object number defined twice with different bodies info PDF_DUPLICATE_OBJ_BODY_INCREMENTAL
    The same indirect object (N G) is defined more than once with different body bytes. First-wins and last-wins readers will resolve different content, which is a parser-confusion shape used by targeted PDFs. Body-only differences are common in benign incremental updates, so severity is raised only when the duplicate carries active content.
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL https://mub.me/Yzif
    • https://https://www.google.co.in/example.com
    • http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/

Extracted artifacts 6

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673		 vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
stream_003_off00005f60.bin
2998a126f4fa11ceb265371a5f7968ec18bc4692a32631a544232dc74040021f		 decompressed-pdf-stream PDF FlateDecoded stream at offset 0x5F60 252488 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00000e00.pdf
cc1cccfe0aab2733bb32fb58dec6a03a9f49400596099e860e0c5dc3bc42019e		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE00 841728 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00006400.pdf
e7598ec3711eb20e7e5f54aa23b2cc5fe82ffb167f2202b4f517df8874f606db		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x6400 819712 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00029400.pdf
089f70a827d0ad3a1050c2c326e87a09914bc3db7b1df0b07a226e30280029f9		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x29400 676352 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00048000.pdf
f16e48353c82b60ddd90d663754feef53e2dc7124952e3a4510cd134dde542ea		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x48000 550400 bytes

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