Malicious RTF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 7575405f2aa1499e…

MALICIOUS

RTF

3.15 MB First seen: 2022-07-26
MD5: 640719be9d01251afea013bc6d78f948 SHA-1: df1d9d6c8175eb21328385b6308cf3a076bc9533 SHA-256: 7575405f2aa1499e0904370b2c792562ec71941cd81f0f86914be1fed935108e
402 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The RTF document contains an embedded Equation Editor object, a known vector for exploiting CVE-2017-11882. This exploit likely drops and executes a second-stage payload, as indicated by the ClamAV detection of 'Rtf.Dropper.Agent-9965975-1' and the extracted artifact 'Win.Trojan.AsyncRAT-9914220-0'. The large amount of hex-encoded data within the OLE object further suggests the presence of a hidden payload.

Heuristics 10

  • 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.
  • 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
  • ClamAV: Rtf.Dropper.Agent-9965975-1 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Rtf.Dropper.Agent-9965975-1
  • ClamAV detection on extracted artifact critical EXTRACTED_FILE_CLAMAV
    ClamAV flagged at least one file extracted from inside this sample. Even when the wrapping document carries no AV detection of its own, a hit on the carved artifact is a strong indicator the sample is a delivery vehicle.
  • \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 ~1757KB 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
  • Suspicious extracted artifact info EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE
    One or more files extracted from inside this sample matched static suspicious-content checks such as script obfuscation, encoded payload blobs, packed data, or execution/download terms.

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off000012b8.bin
d723cc0269b80a39203dd14ff7731fdb70456214ff491212df8ca4e2ee86c577
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x12B8 896299 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Win.Trojan.AsyncRAT-9914220-0
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact entropy is 7.93, consistent with packed or encrypted content.
objdata_01_off001c268a.bin
a9ff9a80fcbe35345bbc4e4eca2212ef4c041b9f9a7826aafeaaa45782edf0a1
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x1C268A 346904 bytes