Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 052603dee2745c67…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

25.4 KB First seen: 2022-11-11
MD5: 9833186b5f76f76916e3a2abf075fe33 SHA-1: 8778898dbfc53ecc3dda4ab313e3c23b99c1e8c6 SHA-256: 052603dee2745c67a84c2bef6b0e6010e0a3001e729c1775127b98db3a122edc
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter T1566 Phishing

The sample is an RTF document that contains an embedded OLE object, specifically targeting the Equation Editor vulnerability. The \objupdate directive indicates that the embedded object will be activated automatically upon opening, bypassing user interaction. The heuristic SE_ENABLE_LURE suggests the document also contains text prompting the user to enable editing or macros, a common social engineering tactic to facilitate exploitation. The primary goal appears to be the execution of arbitrary code via the Equation Editor exploit, likely to download and run a secondary payload.

Heuristics 4

  • Split hex Equation Editor ProgID + OLE object critical RTF_EQUATION_EDITOR
    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
    RTF contains \objupdate — forces automatic OLE object instantiation when the document is opened, bypassing user interaction. Almost exclusively seen in Equation Editor exploit documents.
  • OLE object data medium RTF_OBJDATA
    RTF contains 1 \objdata section(s) — embedded OLE objects
  • Macro/content-enable lure medium SE_ENABLE_LURE
    Document instructs the user to enable macros or editing — a common technique used by malware droppers to bypass Office macro security settings

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off00005275.bin
d832a9f8b48176435ddbb94a8301e09a342b256f3932e2138f0ce5037222c4e6
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x5275 1372 bytes