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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 fea4c9f055142e36…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

224.0 KB First seen: 2022-05-22
MD5: b829011e8d36179f81735ca506f94653 SHA-1: 3c58ce71b8ba0f25144d408aceefc0e0a3142381 SHA-256: fea4c9f055142e36995e5789e3c34a8259897990d18f30f19f1bfdc65d84abbb
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1559.001 Component Object Model

The file is a password-encrypted Excel document containing an embedded Equation Editor OLE object. High-confidence heuristics indicate this object is specifically crafted to exploit CVE-2018-0798, a vulnerability in Equation Editor. This exploit is designed to execute arbitrary code, likely leading to the download and execution of a second-stage payload.

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.
  • Office document is password-encrypted medium OFFICE_ENCRYPTED_PACKAGE
    OLE container holds MS-OFFCRYPTO encrypted package (Standard Encryption (Office 2007+, AES-128)).
  • 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.