Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 10599d244ba6eb87…

MALICIOUS

PDF

23.6 KB
MD5: 1945d60950406d0f4e41fa76bd4b378c SHA-1: 42d4e7b68794217b6bb88d698f71f8f474ea07cb SHA-256: 10599d244ba6eb87421355daeaf0eb454ab21408d754090b7f38e8fa3377ccd5
120 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.007 JavaScript T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The PDF contains embedded JavaScript, flagged by multiple heuristics as malicious and indicative of an exploit. The JavaScript is heavily obfuscated but appears to be designed to download and execute a second-stage payload, as suggested by the 'deobfuscated.js' artifact. The ML classifier strongly supports the malicious verdict. The presence of embedded JavaScript points to T1059.007 (JavaScript) and T1203 (Exploitation for Client Execution). Given it's a PDF, T1566.001 (Spearphishing Attachment) is the likely initial access vector.

Machine Learning

  • Nyx PDF Classifier malicious score 0.9994

Heuristics 7

  • PDF JavaScript exploit cluster critical PDF_JS_EXPLOIT_CLUSTER
    PDF combines an executable JavaScript/action surface with exploit staging indicators such as eval/unescape/fromCharCode, XFA script content, or a related CVE pattern. Benign form JavaScript remains low-severity, but this correlated cluster is high-confidence malicious behavior.
  • JavaScript action low PDF_JAVASCRIPT
    PDF contains a /JavaScript action. Generic JavaScript is common in benign forms; specific dangerous APIs are scored by separate rules.
  • Embedded JS stream low PDF_JS
    PDF references a /JS stream. Generic JavaScript is common in benign forms; specific dangerous APIs are scored by separate rules.
  • String.fromCharCode low PDF_FROMCHARCODE
    String.fromCharCode found — used to construct payload strings dynamically. Common in benign JavaScript libraries for codepoint manipulation, so this alone is informational; weaponised use is also caught by the dedicated fromCharCode-stage and exploit-shape rules. (matched inside decoded stream)
  • PDF paints image(s) but contains no text operators info PDF_IMAGE_ONLY_LURE
    PDF has 1 image XObject(s) and the content stream contains no text-emitting operators (BT/ET, Tj, TJ, ', ") in either raw bytes or decompressed streams — this is the screenshot-as-PDF pattern used to bypass text-based scanners and to deliver instructions purely through rendered pixels. It is informational unless paired with invisible links or risky URI context.
  • 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.
  • 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://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    • http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/

Extracted artifacts 2

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
javascript_obj0099_000.js
f05eebf4f7a03862f214a4bb5509e174dd89f4cd1e36b87682cc358c2aa57c20
pdf-javascript-stream PDF /JS object 99 at offset 0x548D 8729 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 2 eval/decoder/string-building token(s). Carved artifact contains 9 long base64-like blob(s).
deobfuscated.js
901db40bb6a6ac30695146e533bfce1a214b84b710c49d2f6b87b1ce408b8c3b
deobfuscated-js PDF JavaScript deobfuscation pass 40097 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 4 eval/decoder/string-building token(s). Carved artifact contains 18 long base64-like blob(s).