Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 5aef1fefce6dc1d1…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

23.6 KB First seen: 2022-11-18
MD5: 6364dc7e2e4e23d9e8d3927e9ad8be47 SHA-1: 7a478800abc3a940d2bec53ac95162926faa06cb SHA-256: 5aef1fefce6dc1d1598ec472a154f849841ec7a3b9b7eb02b0da4b5539a6b1a9
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 User Execution: Malicious File T1059.005 PowerShell

The file is an RTF document containing an embedded OLE object, specifically targeting the Equation Editor vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882). The document body includes a lure instructing the user to 'Enable editing' to view its content, which is a common tactic for macro-based malware or exploit documents. The presence of the Equation Editor ProgID 'eQUaTION.3' strongly indicates exploitation of this vulnerability.

Heuristics 6

  • 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 1 \objdata section(s) — embedded OLE objects
  • Embedded OLE object medium RTF_OBJEMB
    RTF contains \objemb — embedded OLE object
  • 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_off00004198.bin
a569f00798688335a229260aa6b9da6cc9639468043769d2bfc8a70429245d81		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x4198 1579 bytes

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