Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 4685397851f3e596…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

23.3 KB
MD5: f26c0e3eb65000dafb059fa40525d219 SHA-1: d241041492d2ffd02d22c0a41c42eeb7ad7c7b8a SHA-256: 4685397851f3e5969bb6868d960bc786aed2e109bdfb0ab6fb5e51bc569fd5a8
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File Execution: Malicious File T1559.001 Component Object Model Hijacking: Component Object Model T1059.001 Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell

The RTF document contains embedded OLE objects, specifically triggering the CVE-2017-11882 vulnerability through a crafted Equation Editor object. This exploit allows for the execution of arbitrary code, likely to download and run a secondary payload. The presence of RTF_OBJDATA, RTF_OBJEMB, RTF_EQUATION_EDITOR, CVE_2017_11882_ACTIVATION_RELATED, and RTF_OBJUPDATE heuristics strongly indicates this attack vector.

Heuristics 5

  • 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 2 \objdata section(s) — embedded OLE objects
  • Embedded OLE object medium RTF_OBJEMB
    RTF contains \objemb — embedded OLE object

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off00001473.bin
92b9ae703aae4e5857e55054b3c43efb409c2cdaeee212a45b55db39b83936b4		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x1473 1796 bytes

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