Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9556c06806c14dfc…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

25.9 KB First seen: 2022-12-07
MD5: 76ce4cfe5dad029abff24fc30be1403d SHA-1: effbcd4525862d04b16cc0147847af534c0de83d SHA-256: 9556c06806c14dfcfc716d3d8ec91fff72cf5fefee8c28c77af9c07d915895b9
200 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 embedded OLE object specifically identified as related to CVE-2017-11882, a known vulnerability in Microsoft Equation Editor. The presence of \objupdate and SE_ENABLE_LURE heuristics indicates the document is designed to trick the user into activating the embedded object, which then exploits the vulnerability. This is a common delivery mechanism for malware.

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_off0000432a.bin
9da489534b120a41ce6cae3bb0de6336677c6eae73660b9e848e3ca57f5c36bd		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x432A 1533 bytes

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