Malicious RTF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 e5a44febaf818f5a…

MALICIOUS

RTF

3.49 MB Created: 2024-04-03 08:46:00 First seen: 2025-04-30
MD5: 9ef6d8fbf3263f6305b95ae44799a8cd SHA-1: b6ee967f8e876d83e72ce8d1f3c94be45ee0a4c1 SHA-256: e5a44febaf818f5acde033abdc531596cd57a536db492cea0d595ff7f43f0199
322 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The RTF file contains multiple indicators of exploitation, including embedded OLE objects and specifically the CVE-2017-11882 Equation Editor vulnerability. The presence of large hex-encoded data blocks and a PE header within the OLE object strongly suggests that a malicious executable payload is being hidden and delivered. The document body itself contains only font information, providing no direct lure, but the technical indicators are conclusive.

Heuristics 9

  • 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
  • \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 ~1461KB 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
  • Embedded URL info EMBEDDED_URL
    One or more URLs were extracted from the document. The URL itself is not a detection — see the per-URL labels for which channel (macro, JS, link annotation, document body, ...) reached each URL.
    URL http://ocsp.verisign.com0
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2003/wordml
    • https://www.verisign.com/rpa
    • http://csc3-2010-crl.verisign.com/CSC3-2010.crl0D
    • https://www.verisign.com/rpa0
    • http://csc3-2010-aia.verisign.com/CSC3-2010.cer0
    • https://www.verisign.com/cps0*
    • http://logo.verisign.com/vslogo.gif04
    • http://crl.verisign.com/pca3-g5.crl04
    • https://www.globalsign.com/repository/0
    • http://ocsp.globalsign.com/ca/gstsacasha384g40C
    • http://secure.globalsign.com/cacert/gstsacasha384g4.crt0
    • http://crl.globalsign.com/ca/gstsacasha384g4.crl0
    • http://ocsp2.globalsign.com/rootr606
    • http://crl.globalsign.com/root-r6.crl0G

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off00003a12.bin
1c76128b967e5312d4700f56aa089cc0dbbef5cc7e7d905bf451e42b40dc89fb		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x3A12 743658 bytes
objdata_01_off0017a418.bin
31e3bdb4635082b6f5401bd7688a1baf90019932fe37de5dee9246f0964b7ef4		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x17A418 584266 bytes

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