Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 2b45d7502ae57319…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

14.5 KB First seen: 2023-03-15
MD5: 54a48e18674df3ad9165db787dfc1302 SHA-1: 84344585aad1cef5ce33d9c2968c4616cb419154 SHA-256: 2b45d7502ae57319af9cb8e0f44273ef0e1e7aa8ad7e2b2bc7e742e2f9d80700
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 User Execution T1204.002 Malicious File T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter T1059.005 Visual Basic

The sample is an RTF document that leverages OLE object embedding and specifically targets the Equation Editor vulnerability. The document body contains text designed to trick the user into enabling editing and macros, which is a common lure for macro-based malware. The presence of RTF_OBJDATA, RTF_OBJEMB, RTF_EQUATION_EDITOR, and RTF_OBJUPDATE heuristics strongly indicates the exploitation of the Equation Editor vulnerability to execute a malicious payload.

Heuristics 5

  • 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_off00001db8.bin
d55317bb69d1a7f534eb18a20558232d5aefd954ecf2da574f03ecfe3c2ac6f3
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x1DB8 1598 bytes