Malicious RTF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 1b416bca2c99a257…

MALICIOUS

RTF

25.8 KB First seen: 2022-11-29
MD5: 33ebfc86fccb65b437b55580e75b6321 SHA-1: ea428a9fda0997bf93e5934cdd578b6ff9088357 SHA-256: 1b416bca2c99a25771dec5ae858a89ea7477263ccf32c3e1e4708cbc1628cb05
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 Malicious File

The RTF document contains an embedded OLE object specifically identified as related to CVE-2017-11882, exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft Equation Editor. The presence of \objupdate and SE_ENABLE_LURE heuristics indicates the document is designed to trick the user into activating the object, which then likely executes a malicious payload. No specific family could be identified, but the exploit method is clear.

Heuristics 6

  • Equation Editor activation — CVE-2017-11882 related high CVE related CVE_2017_11882_ACTIVATION_RELATED
    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.
  • 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
  • Embedded OLE object medium RTF_OBJEMB
    RTF contains \objemb — embedded OLE object
  • 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_off000052ab.bin
bde795e88460fd84c427d144f1871e24876a3f16c762312028c5932a53ada6a0		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x52AB 1464 bytes

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