Malicious RTF / .DOC — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 f6f50a01600e2ca5…

MALICIOUS

RTF / .DOC

23.8 KB First seen: 2022-11-16
MD5: 000dce30442e8e9d2f038dc8ea1573c3 SHA-1: 3b26c98fd87fb7734c13a90360d26552206d6775 SHA-256: f6f50a01600e2ca5af10510afb381cc6fa912035844852fe5b4e13b52ea5ef08
200 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1204.002 Malicious File T1059.005 Visual Basic

The sample is an RTF document containing an embedded OLE object, specifically targeting the Equation Editor vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882). The presence of `RTF_EQUATION_EDITOR` and `CVE_2017_11882_ACTIVATION_RELATED` heuristics strongly indicates exploitation of this known vulnerability. The `SE_ENABLE_LURE` heuristic suggests the document prompts the user to enable content, a common social engineering tactic for macro-based malware delivery. The embedded OLE object is likely designed to trigger the exploit upon activation, leading to the execution of a malicious payload.

Heuristics 6

  • 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.
  • 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
  • Embedded OLE object medium RTF_OBJEMB
    RTF contains \objemb — embedded OLE object
  • 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_off000046a4.bin
b78908def1f291b2126042e40420bc6e1aa5c0f10c0eb3df250007d5ae70b235		 rtf-objdata-decoded RTF \objdata at offset 0x46A4 1382 bytes

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