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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 e3d8a0adc28f9390…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLS

1.52 MB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel
MD5: d9b14b5cb796fa5071d50a0f15f3e575 SHA-1: cd0c668615898b833323fbe1d50fba8710103ce4 SHA-256: e3d8a0adc28f9390b3b800e390676a6dc4068166358436ffd815fea0cff3ccfa
124 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.001 PowerShell

The sample is an OLE2Link file that exploits CVE-2017-0199 to load a remote URL. It also contains an embedded PDF with suspicious static findings, including encryption and image-only lures, suggesting it may be a secondary stage or part of a multi-stage attack. The embedded URL is the primary indicator of a remote loading mechanism.

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 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.
  • Encrypted PDF (string and stream contents are opaque to static scan) info PDF_ENCRYPTED
    PDF declares /Encrypt — string objects and stream contents are encrypted with the standard security handler (RC4 or AES). On its own this is informational; legitimate encrypted documents include signed contracts, billing statements, and rights-managed material. Static heuristics cannot inspect encrypted payload bytes.
  • PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators info 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.
  • 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://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceRef#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceEvent#
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/
    • http://www.extensis.com/meta/FontSense/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/photoshop/1.0/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
polyglot_child_pdf_off000aa800.pdf
afa2eea64530b9981774af4d1df8b082939f29e035c2bc69eda5571f6e4f1453		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0xAA800 892928 bytes

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