Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 46f2ec8954bd1cfe…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

15.9 KB
MD5: fa8052f5085690c324e90696404aaa01 SHA-1: 5ab8492bc08117a0a84c32b5b9b0d9c80d40ea0d SHA-256: 46f2ec8954bd1cfec1906ef597976b7f1e10d4358030e6b5cb884509bf35e2f8
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 Malicious File Execution: User Execution T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.001 Malicious File Execution: User Execution

The sample is an RTF document that contains embedded OLE objects, specifically triggering heuristics related to Equation Editor vulnerabilities. The presence of \objupdate suggests that the embedded object is designed to be activated automatically, leading to code execution. While no specific script was extracted, the heuristics strongly indicate exploitation of the Equation Editor vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882) to achieve arbitrary code execution, likely for downloading and executing a secondary payload.

Heuristics 3

  • 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

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off00000902.bin
6831d8ef1b395ac15b6cc267f388a9865ecb10091c02d17c41cd826b2ecc1c14
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x902 1811 bytes