Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 f159c587107ae028…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

1.47 MB First seen: 2023-07-26
MD5: 562dad8865fb593d858dbbb4bbaf3dce SHA-1: c31209046c39faf693d642199dbe69a0dbc8f20e SHA-256: f159c587107ae028a90f4b5f740b9afecaaadd422276fb570e0f00c26f75f3bb
222 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is an RTF document that leverages the Equation Editor OLE object to exploit CVE-2017-11882. This vulnerability allows for the execution of arbitrary code, indicated by the presence of a decoded PE file within the OLE object data. The excessive hex data and OLE object structure strongly suggest a malicious payload is embedded and intended for execution upon opening.

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 ~1540KB 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_off00000095.bin
2cc5aeae4f55d62903c5d7e54fa37acceae81f23b1aca63b50b7bed5ad7e6ee2
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x95 770511 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact entropy is 7.99, consistent with packed or encrypted content.