Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 1ef05fb2ff498653…

MALICIOUS

PDF

25.9 KB
MD5: 38db8953efde32ed95f1721d8b06924b SHA-1: e7fdfafb1fdec5fae3e3239e5931ac1de577f3c3 SHA-256: 1ef05fb2ff498653c3b90bd96e7286ffb8969742bc7287024617bbafe0013255
156 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1059.001 PowerShell T1204.002 Malicious File T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

The PDF file contains XFA forms and utilizes JavaScript functions like unescape() and String.fromCharCode(), indicating an attempt to obfuscate and execute malicious code. The presence of an embedded script payload and the ML classifier's high confidence score strongly suggest this PDF is designed to exploit vulnerabilities and deliver a secondary payload. The embedded file artifact further supports this, likely containing the next stage of the attack.

Machine Learning

  • Nyx PDF Classifier malicious score 1.0000

Heuristics 8

  • XFA form contains risky executable script high CVE related PDF_XFA_SCRIPT
    PDF embeds an XFA form whose script block contains exploit, submission/launch, or shell-execution primitives. Ordinary LiveCycle print/update scripts are left as generic XFA/JS signals unless stronger behavior is present.
  • unescape() call high PDF_UNESCAPE
    unescape() found — often used to decode shellcode in PDF JS exploits
  • Embedded script payload in PDF stream medium PDF_EMBEDDED_SCRIPT_PAYLOAD
    PDF stream bytes contain an HTML/XFA <script> tag without accompanying Windows shell-execution primitives — common in accessible XFA forms but worth surfacing for analyst review.
  • Embedded file low PDF_EMBEDDED
    PDF embeds a file attachment — could carry an executable or another weaponised document as a nested payload
  • XFA form low PDF_XFA
    PDF uses XML Forms Architecture — can contain script logic
  • 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.
  • 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://ns.adobe.com/xdp/
    • http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-template/2.5/
    • http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-data/1.0/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
embedded_file_obj0008.bin
8dbce0a143aed9d3d949508294177dbbc860ecb1865c210edbc7d1c59fdbb31a
pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 8 at offset 0xC6 25796 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 2 eval/decoder/string-building token(s).