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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 e107aa35a6cdcc80…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

147.0 KB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-10-02
MD5: 5ae49a1d2adb42594366e328016278d8 SHA-1: ac2eab3302f6dbd7fa3f8cbfd9c0bc778379be0c SHA-256: e107aa35a6cdcc801e11fe06bd2c579b66a48f01bfbb24a9ce98ec316839cc40
112 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 download a secondary payload. The embedded URL points to a .dOC file, suggesting a document-based attack. The presence of an embedded PDF with suspicious static findings further indicates a multi-stage malicious document. No VBA macros were found to be executable, but the primary exploit is clear.

Heuristics 5

  • 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 high 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.
  • 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.
  • PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators info PDF_IMAGE_ONLY_LURE
    PDF has 1 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.
  • 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 http://103.182.16.23/zwww/zx/ioi0i0i0ioioioio0ii0i000ii0iooioioioi00iIOI0IOI00000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%230000000.dOC

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
macros.bas
7f506327609c082af1cd37dde23bc2c71a000f7d1ef530b6abb66775040a7673
vba-macro oletools.olevba.extract_macros (decoded VBA source) 1206 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off00000e00.pdf
ac23640d29ddef3e366804747a4c3111b5cfa3e03d19508dec28eb9ecfd3387f
polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xE00 146944 bytes