Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9e72e7b0bd3a2959…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

1.95 MB
MD5: 17f4108db2f30c08e6519c1f1d6305a5 SHA-1: cdd2884b91ad9df17f52e0b19180fa0b440af076 SHA-256: 9e72e7b0bd3a29598ae5c2883a10ffbbcf2121e7e2db6c3e629990b12b23d3ab
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is an RTF document containing an embedded OLE object that exploits the Equation Editor vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882). The `RTF_EQUATION_EDITOR` and `CVE_2017_11882_ACTIVATION_RELATED` heuristics confirm this. The `RTF_OBJUPDATE` heuristic indicates that the embedded object is forced to activate, likely leading to the execution of a malicious script. The decoded object data contains what appears to be obfuscated VBScript, suggesting the intent is to download and execute a second-stage payload.

Heuristics 5

  • 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 2 \objdata section(s) — embedded OLE objects
  • Embedded OLE object medium RTF_OBJEMB
    RTF contains \objemb — embedded OLE object

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off00001116.bin
922ffbdf17194934dc1ad730129d09354dea5e3e4beae0a00ea32ea804e0780f		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x1116 25629 bytes
objdata_01_off00019219.bin
0a68d9e39a239498edad4769b15ebffc3a7aacdb0159a7082c9c85b289bc5fc1		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x19219 462273 bytes

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