Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 54b2281a258fe546…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

23.8 KB First seen: 2022-11-14
MD5: b782042c7e07d83423bc5faf167e73d8 SHA-1: f9dd5e192e4644a80f12b0d82981f4c349758ec2 SHA-256: 54b2281a258fe546ebdbdfc4677d0ad7178596e47c95ceff34d75c917107b091
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 User Execution: Malicious Link T1059.005 PowerShell T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File

The RTF document contains an embedded OLE object with a split Equation Editor ProgID, indicating an attempt to exploit the Equation Editor vulnerability. The \objupdate directive forces OLE activation, and the document body contains a lure instructing the user to 'Enable editing' to view the content. This suggests the file is designed to exploit the Equation Editor vulnerability to execute a secondary payload.

Heuristics 4

  • 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
  • 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_off00004799.bin
39729d3a35954e422221bb53e1761473cc0fd30efc96606277f0cc2fbf116fe5
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x4799 1726 bytes