Malicious RTF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 bd543b089126f0a1…

MALICIOUS

RTF

1.17 MB First seen: 2023-02-07
MD5: c78de47fa93850a67dff6acca9f9c099 SHA-1: a81a642022ae1def29d9b88a4ca31a7e91fd8b83 SHA-256: bd543b089126f0a1a7641a7bbbc4fcc2dbaae8d35ec5b204bf4ca429a5f50ee7
242 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The RTF document contains an embedded OLE object specifically targeting the Equation Editor vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882). This exploit is designed to decode and execute a PE payload hidden within the object data. The presence of excessive hex-encoded data and a high-entropy decoded object further supports the malicious intent of delivering a secondary payload.

Heuristics 7

  • 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 ~1222KB 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
  • Embedded OLE object medium RTF_OBJEMB
    RTF contains \objemb — embedded OLE object
  • 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_off0000006e.bin
34a34d66cc7756140eb9889fe8a13a285fe5271f7dfecf7aaf2275a968c06cd5
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x6E 611661 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact entropy is 8.00, consistent with packed or encrypted content.