Malicious RTF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a1f5765e5de61704…

MALICIOUS

RTF

1.39 MB First seen: 2023-02-14
MD5: 897282e7bac560d11e57ed7217a777d9 SHA-1: 2d463696aaa78038e36131e22b24d8403f3e6b9d SHA-256: a1f5765e5de61704ab038787697deb3962d1adb316a9460fe86a8ebe3c13368f
222 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The RTF file contains an embedded OLE object with decoded Equation Editor payload, strongly indicating exploitation of CVE-2017-11882. The presence of a PE file within the OLE object suggests it acts as a dropper for a secondary malicious executable. The excessive hex data and high entropy of the embedded artifact further support the presence of a hidden payload.

Heuristics 6

  • Equation Editor OLE1 native payload — CVE-2017-11882 related critical CVE related CVE_2017_11882_RELATED
    RTF decodes to an OLE1 Equation.3 embedded object whose native data is large and payload-like, and \objupdate requests automatic activation. This is the delivery shape used by Equation Editor RCE documents such as CVE-2017-11882/CVE-2018-0802, but the malformed MTEF record needed for exact attribution was not recovered.
  • Decoded Equation Editor payload + PE critical RTF_EQUATION_EDITOR
    RTF decodes to an Equation Editor ProgID adjacent to OLE activation and the same decoded object stream contains embedded PE bytes. This matches the Equation Editor exploit surface used by CVE-2017-11882 / CVE-2018-0802 documents, while requiring payload evidence to avoid flagging benign Equation references.
  • \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.
  • Large hex data blocks in OLE object high RTF_EXCESSIVE_HEX
    RTF contains ~1452KB of hex-encoded data inside \objdata sections — may hide a payload
  • OLE object data medium RTF_OBJDATA
    RTF contains 1 \objdata section(s) — embedded OLE objects
  • Suspicious extracted artifact info 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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off0000007c.bin
51c7ca75ff7e2f416fe38c7bcf490a9a1a3963f9f4ed2a88e0e97f988ca6e831
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x7C 726273 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact entropy is 8.00, consistent with packed or encrypted content.