Malicious Office (OOXML) / .DOCX — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 039c7a18b73bde57…

MALICIOUS

Office (OOXML) / .DOCX

626.4 KB
MD5: a9dbb89352b0a9e64391e71254f3cabe SHA-1: beead83d69b022b170b148a6ad3c90c358b98319 SHA-256: 039c7a18b73bde574658592895bacebd58329e7a458c81e6067370a72809c7ca
282 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The sample is a DOCX file that leverages an altChunk to import an RTF object. This RTF object contains an embedded OLE object that exploits CVE-2017-11882 via the Equation Editor. The presence of RTF_EQUATION_EDITOR and CVE_2017_11882_ACTIVATION_RELATED heuristics strongly indicates this exploit. The embedded RTF file, 'word/Mauritania.rtf', is the primary artifact used for exploitation.

Heuristics 8

  • Equation Editor activation — CVE-2017-11882 related high CVE related CVE_2017_11882_ACTIVATION_RELATED
    (in altChunk RTF word/Mauritania.rtf) RTF decodes to an Equation.3 ProgID and requests OLE activation with \objemb plus \objupdate. This reaches the legacy Equation Editor attack surface used by CVE-2017-11882/CVE-2018-0802 documents, but the malformed MTEF/native payload needed for stronger attribution was not recovered.
  • altChunk imports embedded RTF (RTF injection) critical OOXML_ALTCHUNK_RTF
    Document inlines an embedded RTF via an aFChunk relationship and a <w:altChunk> body element. This is the canonical RTF-injection wrapper used to smuggle RTF exploits (Equation Editor / URL Moniker / objdata) past DOCX-only scanners. Word opens the wrapper and executes the RTF inline. Recursing into the RTF for the exact exploit primitive.
  • Split hex Equation Editor ProgID + OLE object critical RTF_EQUATION_EDITOR
    (in altChunk RTF word/Mauritania.rtf) RTF embeds the Equation.3 ProgID as hex bytes near OLE object activation and splits the byte stream with whitespace or an ignorable RTF group. This is an Equation Editor OLE activation surface commonly used by CVE-2017-11882 / CVE-2018-0802 exploit documents.
  • \objupdate forces OLE activation high RTF_OBJUPDATE
    (in altChunk RTF word/Mauritania.rtf) RTF contains \objupdate — forces automatic OLE object instantiation when the document is opened, bypassing user interaction. Almost exclusively seen in Equation Editor exploit documents.
  • Large hex data blocks in OLE object high RTF_EXCESSIVE_HEX
    (in altChunk RTF word/Mauritania.rtf) RTF contains ~2829KB of hex-encoded data inside \objdata sections — may hide a payload
  • OLE object data medium RTF_OBJDATA
    (in altChunk RTF word/Mauritania.rtf) RTF contains 2 \objdata section(s) — embedded OLE objects
  • Embedded OLE object medium RTF_OBJEMB
    (in altChunk RTF word/Mauritania.rtf) RTF contains \objemb — embedded OLE object
  • 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://opendope.org/xpaths
    • http://opendope.org/conditions
    • http://opendope.org/questions
    • http://opendope.org/components
    • http://opendope.org/SmartArt/DataHierarchy
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/math
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/wordprocessingDrawing
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/main
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/schemaLibrary/2006/main
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/chart
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/chartDrawing
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/diagram
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/picture
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/spreadsheetDrawing
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2008/diagram
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/bibliography
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/compatibility
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/lockedCanvas

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off00003a12.bin
10481e75cd6590b234db5246a1088945c52277f12e383dd76b68d4460cb98bfd
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x3A12 1427049 bytes
objdata_01_off002c7737.bin
cfdb4a077c5f246e92e6322395cebc5a3dcf8a28c92ec8882aadb5231c9a8a69
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x2C7737 584266 bytes