Malicious RTF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 3dd4e4abfaddb0fa…

MALICIOUS

RTF

5.23 MB Created: 2025-09-16 18:10:00 First seen: 2025-12-01
MD5: 420e842d0e54e719e87097277640a95e SHA-1: 14a94dbb61a89e2a9fa99a6f549890e7cf2fcf76 SHA-256: 3dd4e4abfaddb0fa7756579f0b50e3905ed32ad871a8a7db4cd841ed8576ae2a
422 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1059.003 Windows Command Shell

The RTF file contains multiple indicators of exploitation, specifically related to CVE-2017-11882 (Equation Editor) and CVE-2017-8759 (MSXML SAX OLE activation). The presence of OLE objects, excessive hex data, and a PE header within the object data strongly suggests that a malicious executable payload is embedded and intended for execution. The document body content appears to be benign calendar data, indicating the exploit is the primary malicious component.

Heuristics 11

  • CVE-2017-8759 — MSXML SAX OLE activation critical CVE likely CVE_2017_8759
    RTF contains a hex-encoded OLE1 object for Msxml2.SAXXMLReader.6.0 followed by an embedded OLE compound document, and the document requests OLE activation. This matches the RTF staging shape used for CVE-2017-8759 SOAP/WSDL parser code injection.
  • 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.
  • Composite Moniker in RTF OLE object high CVE related RTF_COMPOSITE_MONIKER_RELATED
    RTF contains Composite Moniker CLSID in OLE object context, but no nearby scriptlet/SCT payload was confirmed. Treat as related moniker attack-surface evidence rather than proof of CVE-2017-8570 exploitation.
  • CVE-2026-21514 — Word/OLE security bypass in RTF high CVE likely CVE_2026_21514
    RTF contains a hidden \svb hex package with DrsE2oDoc and downRevStg drawing compatibility parts. This matches an observed CVE-2026-21514 exploitation shape that manipulates Word's internal document structure and trust decisions.
  • 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.
  • PE header (with DOS stub) in hex data critical RTF_MZ_HEX
    Hex-encoded PE (MZ + DOS stub) found inside RTF — likely an embedded executable payload
  • \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.
  • Large hex data blocks in OLE object high RTF_EXCESSIVE_HEX
    RTF contains ~1903KB of hex-encoded data inside \objdata sections — may hide a payload
  • OLE object data medium RTF_OBJDATA
    RTF contains 2 \objdata section(s) — embedded OLE objects
  • Embedded OLE object medium RTF_OBJEMB
    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://ocsp.thawte.com0
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2003/wordml
    • http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/t/pg/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/Dimensions#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/g/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/illustrator/1.0/
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceRef#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceEvent#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/
    • http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/acrobat/pdfs/adobe-acrobat-xi-export-pdf-comments-to-word-tutorial-ue.pdf
    • http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat
    • http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/shared-PDF-document-reviews.html
    • http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/esign-with-echosign.html
    • http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/file-compare-two-pdf-files.html
    • http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/pdf-version-control-sharepoint-integration.html
    • http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/pdf-file-password-permissions.html
    • http://cs-g2-crl.thawte.com/ThawteCSG2.crl0
    • http://crl.thawte.com/ThawtePCA.crl0
    • https://www.globalsign.com/repository/0
    • http://ocsp.globalsign.com/ca/gstsacasha384g40C
    • http://secure.globalsign.com/cacert/gstsacasha384g4.crt0
    • http://crl.globalsign.com/ca/gstsacasha384g4.crl0
    • http://ocsp2.globalsign.com/rootr606
    • http://crl.globalsign.com/root-r6.crl0G

Extracted artifacts 3

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off000af73f.bin
cb59d0d021761c6048bc277856c0e19b8517b1b9807a8b79329bbf25657d7df9		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0xAF73F 847514 bytes
objdata_01_off00258bcf.bin
24ee741dd41bc27803d80f81b66eba686fe8f5d17bd847727dc5d94834bd3188		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x258BCF 584826 bytes
rtf_svb_00000009.zip
2352c9fffd0fd8eba341b4fd80ae0a94a85929bec042e2061b1f17cd52df50f2		 rtf-svb-package RTF \svb hex-decoded ZIP at offset 0x9 116884 bytes

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