Malicious RTF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 89342b49c1da5ee0…

MALICIOUS

RTF

51.0 KB First seen: 2023-09-05
MD5: 34480c998d0f47c3b0960745ec2c6071 SHA-1: 68c17e1f27355a5b5b5d5d9010d34f2db67bd1db SHA-256: 89342b49c1da5ee02b661baac37cb104014a9fcdeef9d6bbcc1d70ed8ca42a15
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 Malicious File

The file is an RTF document containing OLE object data and specifically targets the Microsoft Equation Editor, indicated by the RTF_EQUATION_EDITOR heuristic. The presence of RTF_OBJAUTLINK and RTF_OBJUPDATE suggests an attempt to automatically activate the embedded object. The SE_ENABLE_LURE heuristic confirms the document instructs the user to enable editing, a common social engineering tactic to bypass security measures and trigger the exploit.

Heuristics 5

  • 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.
  • Automatically linked OLE object high RTF_OBJAUTLINK
    RTF contains \objautlink — an automatically linked OLE object surface that can be updated or activated when Word opens the document.
  • \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_off00002c26.bin
d8f09d5c2402bd971a8288e30ef30b3c2e8bdc0dc8130db3bc2ac26f55581a41
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x2C26 1817 bytes