Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 84d1ea8f38802eca…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

11.5 KB First seen: 2022-09-28
MD5: a7f098f8937ca43e60b6dccece7356ac SHA-1: dd726afa490400a11c29ddb4a6a6b29e958c4ecd SHA-256: 84d1ea8f38802ecaede1ab70e46b79b315971d907389faee8a377ebf82184ca8
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.005 Visual Basic

The file is an RTF document containing an OLE object with a split Equation Editor ProgID, indicating an attempt to exploit CVE-2017-11882. The ".objupdate" heuristic confirms that the object is configured to activate automatically upon opening. The document body contains a lure instructing the user to 'Enable editing', a common tactic to bypass macro security. This suggests the document's primary purpose is to exploit the Equation Editor vulnerability to gain initial access, likely to download and 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_off00000b27.bin
6817b0fb0c76ca84f610ec92ed189d3d0be64471fb2b3d8799dc9faa5b87b9ce
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0xB27 1778 bytes