equation editor exploit — RTF malware analysis

Static analysis result for SHA-256 ebdea0b1416e54c2…

MALICIOUS

RTF

8.2 KB First seen: 2019-06-27
MD5: 8762876ff486b2d4653909466d1a2f48 SHA-1: 68b052c02c9cb69f55dea27b75cfb19a5103dfa5 SHA-256: ebdea0b1416e54c2a70bf584a673adfbfb688697375502b0ebb3080d1934fe55
180 Risk Score

Malware Insights

equation editor exploit · confidence 95%

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The RTF file contains embedded OLE object data, specifically triggering critical heuristics for CVE-2017-11882 related to the Equation Editor. This indicates the file is designed to exploit this vulnerability for client-side code execution. The presence of \objupdate further suggests an attempt to force OLE activation. The SHA256 hash is provided as a primary IOC.

Heuristics 4

  • Equation Editor CLSID critical CVE likely RTF_EQUATION_EDITOR
    Equation Editor OLE CLSID found inside an OLE object — exploited by CVE-2017-11882 / CVE-2018-0802 / CVE-2018-0798
  • CVE-2017-11882 — Equation Editor FONT record overflow critical CVE likely CVE_2017_11882
    Equation Editor MTEF contains an overlong FONT typeface field, the vulnerable copy primitive for CVE-2017-11882. This is stronger evidence than the Equation Editor CLSID alone because it identifies the malformed record that drives code execution in EQNEDT32.EXE.
  • \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 1 \objdata section(s) — embedded OLE objects

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off00000033.bin rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x33 4137 bytes
SHA-256: 6775a67290f97c27d21677c9b63a9db8e6d387dac9935b5b41cd9310eda97874

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