Malicious RTF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4289cf7cdfe0063b…

MALICIOUS

RTF

4.41 MB Created: 2025-09-16 18:10:00 First seen: 2026-03-07
MD5: 1f2a84daeccbdde588c161c8573c0558 SHA-1: a503d8a6da0bac4e222ebb0513da1f043262fa3e SHA-256: 4289cf7cdfe0063b2252e6cf609bf9dba38a7923a3c2db43ea2a821adaae7575
422 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1059.001 PowerShell T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

This RTF document contains multiple critical heuristic firings indicating exploitation of CVE-2017-11882 (Equation Editor) and CVE-2017-8759 (MSXML SAX OLE activation). The presence of large hex-encoded data blocks and a PE header within OLE objects suggests the embedding of a malicious executable. The RTF_EQUATION_EDITOR and RTF_MZ_HEX rules specifically point to the likely mechanism for initial code execution. The document body is a generic 'TO DO LIST' which serves as a lure.

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 ~1692KB 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.verisign.com0
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2003/wordml
    • https://www.verisign.com/rpa
    • http://csc3-2010-crl.verisign.com/CSC3-2010.crl0D
    • https://www.verisign.com/rpa0
    • http://csc3-2010-aia.verisign.com/CSC3-2010.cer0
    • https://www.verisign.com/cps0*
    • http://logo.verisign.com/vslogo.gif04
    • http://crl.verisign.com/pca3-g5.crl04
    • 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
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/metadata/properties
    • http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2007/PartnerControls
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/customXml
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/metadata/contentType
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/metadata/properties/metaAttributes
    • http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/documentManagement/types
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/metadata/core-properties
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    • http://purl.org/dc/terms/
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/internal/obd
    • http://dublincore.org/schemas/xmls/qdc/2003/04/02/dc.xsd
    • http://dublincore.org/schemas/xmls/qdc/2003/04/02/dcterms.xsd
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms
    • http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/cus�

Extracted artifacts 3

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off000af79f.bin
c553fa99f83718cb0ad6468c89afee9a775ea8a6462b5a4599637709276075c7		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0xAF79F 742378 bytes
objdata_01_off002256cf.bin
da8cb70cfd8a429b702a62e2fdaacf621665f3e786e20e63a2796a2f2e40550b		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x2256CF 610306 bytes
rtf_svb_00000009.zip
28fc295dafc0bcccd998d6dc34a4e9ae47eb34cb74cb4b892eb6454833467799		 rtf-svb-package RTF \svb hex-decoded ZIP at offset 0x9 116932 bytes

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