Malicious RTF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 c92ff078105e22c3…

MALICIOUS

RTF

2.81 MB First seen: 2022-08-22
MD5: 8dedbb0d860433676967a628be5c28be SHA-1: cfa4c4dab6f27428cf9b178d96669251c2f0b7ff SHA-256: c92ff078105e22c36e65c54336f434101b4c167a62371ac306a8197a2b72fe25
382 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204 Malicious Link T1204.002 Malicious Link: Malicious File T1566 Phishing T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter

The RTF document contains embedded OLE objects and exploits the CVE-2017-11882 vulnerability in Microsoft Equation Editor. This vulnerability allows for the execution of arbitrary code, likely to download and run a secondary payload. The presence of a PE header within the hex-encoded data further indicates the embedding of an executable.

Heuristics 10

  • 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.
  • Composite Moniker in RTF OLE object high CVE related RTF_COMPOSITE_MONIKER_RELATED
    RTF contains Composite Moniker CLSID in OLE object context, but no nearby scriptlet/SCT payload was confirmed. Treat as related moniker attack-surface evidence rather than proof of CVE-2017-8570 exploitation.
  • 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.
  • PE header (with DOS stub) in hex data critical RTF_MZ_HEX
    Hex-encoded PE (MZ + DOS stub) found inside RTF — likely an embedded executable payload
  • ClamAV: Rtf.Dropper.Agent-9965975-1 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Rtf.Dropper.Agent-9965975-1
  • \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 ~1987KB of hex-encoded data inside \objdata sections — may hide a payload
  • 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
  • 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 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off0000129e.bin
4b559a090c61c28971ba04e621f87b99b36cc8da445d70ef7cb88b6311da4425
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x129E 999749 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact entropy is 8.00, consistent with packed or encrypted content.
objdata_01_off001ef6a6.bin
0e956ec33c71a31a2677a62fabab59837a9c0539a96de69de768a617f5f5b6d3
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x1EF6A6 187438 bytes