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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ec3a19c7a82224c2…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

1.14 MB Created: 2006-09-16 00:00:00 Authoring application: Microsoft Excel First seen: 2023-08-12
MD5: e22464a3f95df021754dc799fb2568d5 SHA-1: 61cf423ae0b5d05ed7541b693491e6faa036685a SHA-256: ec3a19c7a82224c2d94312547172adf2222fc8dbf4a687d1f009161aa397697c
112 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The critical heuristic firing for CVE-2017-0199 indicates that the OLE object is configured to download a remote file from the specified URL. Although the VBA project contains no executable statements, the presence of the CVE-2017-0199 exploit and the embedded URL strongly suggest a malicious intent to download and execute a secondary payload. The embedded PDF also contains suspicious static findings, further supporting the malicious nature of the file.

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 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://23.94.239.89/2301/doc/000000000000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23000000000000000%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23%23000000000000000.DOC

Extracted artifacts 3

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_off00004200.pdf
fee484284aad203426483634cfb6ade5eeb78ccc4088f18009654cab311fd78c		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x4200 1182720 bytes
polyglot_child_pdf_off0007cc00.pdf
16f30e9d03a558feaa8e81775a98e3aa0608f4a9a2ca16c292c3d52077c788dc		 polyglot-child-pdf Secondary PDF body inside ole container at offset 0x7CC00 688640 bytes

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