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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 e0950272ad12fd42…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

2.14 MB
MD5: 39e76ccdc6e70e134761fa679ac42dd6 SHA-1: 0ea0a17e8253f1bd8ce89df3b131955448b3e323 SHA-256: e0950272ad12fd424356cfd108598ac75a9f8d94f9beb8193092f25348b45f8e
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1027 Obfuscated Files or Information

The file is an encrypted OOXML document that contains an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. Heuristics indicate exploitation of CVE-2018-0798 via an anomalous Equation Editor native stream, suggesting it's designed to execute arbitrary code. The default password encryption and the nature of the Equation Editor exploit point towards a malicious payload delivery mechanism.

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.