Malicious RTF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 97078ce1c4740d5b…

MALICIOUS

RTF

42.7 KB First seen: 2021-09-16
MD5: 5e61e1f3c2ede385124e0b871628d2df SHA-1: 34d94e13255c3c80ffbce5771d48635ce3d65904 SHA-256: 97078ce1c4740d5bb498ebe9c5e0d9a14041a46e2312f5441b3d07e0393f9a83
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The RTF file contains multiple indicators of malicious activity, including embedded OLE objects and specific heuristics pointing to the CVE-2017-11882 Equation Editor vulnerability. This exploit is commonly used to execute arbitrary code, suggesting the file's primary purpose is to deliver a secondary payload. The presence of obfuscated JavaScript within the document body further supports this, indicating an attempt to download and execute malicious content.

Heuristics 6

  • Split hex Equation Editor ProgID + OLE object critical CVE likely 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.
  • 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.
  • \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 3 \objdata section(s) — embedded OLE objects
  • Embedded OLE object medium RTF_OBJEMB
    RTF contains \objemb — embedded OLE object
  • Suspicious extracted artifact medium 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.

Related samples 8

Ranked by shared artifacts, heuristics, extracted URLs, CVEs, and signatures.

Full JSON: related samples API

Extracted artifacts 3

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off00000020.bin rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x20 20098 bytes
SHA-256: cd757774df726e19222c4a8437b31a40c62250fcbaef8e1044dabf32c2e0ed88
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Static shellcode analysis found candidate code region(s). Indicators: heap spray 0x41 (A) Carved artifact contains 1 shell/COM execution token(s).
objdata_01_off00009d45.bin rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x9D45 1709 bytes
SHA-256: 6ef048de06e9c2e6b420e78a489e52123766b08549a074a5f95b98ffe8558f38
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Static shellcode analysis found candidate code region(s). Indicators: SC_PEB_ACCESS
objdata_02_off00009d55.bin rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x9D55 36 bytes
SHA-256: 8935eb605040753f89379b3f05c2cdaefba833ec64299ed9c258020f4c1217b0

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