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

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ff4e17d62ce9c711…

MALICIOUS

Office (OLE) / .XLSX

229.1 KB
MD5: f49e322b837835ac60cad8c173ecff31 SHA-1: c7cddfbf865b528d1bbbbe5c5f3974279cc8b6f5 SHA-256: ff4e17d62ce9c71164879418e7942cecf8db37b16cb66adebc6c2570840f8524
220 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File T1059.001 Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell T1204.001 User Execution: Malicious Link T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File T1059.001 Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell

The sample is a password-encrypted OOXML file using the default 'VelvetSweatshop' password, a common technique to evade detection. It contains an embedded OLE object (xl/embeddings/oleObject1.bin) that triggers CVE-2018-0798, an Equation Editor vulnerability. The high entropy in the oLe10NATIvE stream indicates the presence of shellcode,shellcode which is likely intended to execute a second-stage payload upon opening the document.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • Encrypted Office package with CFB FAT corruption critical OLE_ENCRYPTED_AND_MALFORMED
    Encrypted-package shape co-occurs with FAT-chain corruption — the documented combined evasion form.
  • 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)).
  • 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.