Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 7be95ee6c7e6300e…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

41.9 KB First seen: 2023-02-21
MD5: 6442e892ff0e31df07469224655ea46e SHA-1: ad038f24f801acc4e905a31983d9108d64c0591a SHA-256: 7be95ee6c7e6300e0668e3371b417c572cf9f7a2536a8b3babec05937a131362
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1204.002 Malicious File T1566 Phishing T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter T1059.005 Visual Basic

The sample is an RTF document containing an embedded OLE object that exploits the Equation Editor vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882). The document body contains a lure instructing the user to enable editing, a common tactic for macro-based malware. The embedded object is specifically identified as related to Equation Editor activation, indicating a high likelihood of exploitation.

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_off000056ad.bin
73ac7c582720f076c2cca9ea9babc9c33562562e80cedbeebcc7c41fe1b725eb		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x56AD 1591 bytes

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