Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 2a2c8e57f4b7472c…

MALICIOUS

PDF

40.4 KB
MD5: 7ec9a5c63629eb9015eead2265900e4b SHA-1: 630bd7dbfae1288eb68c48757258154f0df9f2b7 SHA-256: 2a2c8e57f4b7472c8a9f1088c05f141d430d7be1eb0009cf9f17450dd049f5a6
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The PDF file contains an embedded exploit targeting CVE-2010-0188 in Adobe Reader. This vulnerability is leveraged to execute a malicious payload, as indicated by the ClamAV detection and the presence of an embedded file. The attack pattern involves tricking the user into opening a malicious PDF that triggers the exploit.

Heuristics 7

  • Adobe Reader LibTIFF XFA image exploit — CVE-2010-0188 critical CVE likely CVE_2010_0188
    PDF contains XFA image data with an inline crafted TIFF payload and shellcode/delivery markers. This is the data-bound variant of the CVE-2010-0188 Adobe Reader LibTIFF/XFA exploit shape.
  • ClamAV: Pdf.Exploit.Dropped-90 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Pdf.Exploit.Dropped-90
  • ASCIIHexDecode filter (with exploit indicators) medium PDF_FILTER_HEX
    Hex-encoding filter present alongside exploit delivery indicators — often used to hide payload or shellcode bytes
  • 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
  • PDF differential parser failed info PDF_DIFFERENTIAL_PARSE_FAILED
    The cross-check parser (pdfminer.six) failed on this file: PDF differential parser failed: PSSyntaxError. Static heuristics still ran and any of their findings above are valid; only the differential cross-check signal is missing.
  • 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
embedded_file_obj0001.bin
4e771b0ec1c48ed099fdeb28a830f76ea5c8298233da222987a2c3ad97e6aa94
pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 1 at offset 0x5B 13415 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 1 long base64-like blob(s).