Malicious RTF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 f478e65d5ca2877d…

MALICIOUS

RTF

30.1 KB First seen: 2023-07-04
MD5: 490a968171cec8599699b7a2a0addc2f SHA-1: 4de0bd083df4113419624bdd9202d8ac8c22820f SHA-256: f478e65d5ca2877dbb5e6a2477a5e25a3a2d3785717dea57319e50bd9570091a
140 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1059.005 PowerShell

The RTF file contains an embedded OLE object with a split Equation Editor ProgID, indicating an attempt to exploit the Equation Editor vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882). The \objupdate directive further suggests that the embedded object is intended to be activated automatically. The document body contains a lure to enable editing, common for macro-based malware droppers. The embedded object, objdata_00_off00004304.bin, is the primary artifact of interest.

Heuristics 4

  • 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.
  • \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
  • Macro/content-enable lure medium SE_ENABLE_LURE
    Document instructs the user to enable macros or editing — a common technique used by malware droppers to bypass Office macro security settings

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
objdata_00_off00004304.bin
5b8acb40534630685026369c0ba6a162a0e2e11b9e87f0c166d5a21cf3884b5c
rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x4304 1467 bytes