Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 456953831bf1ca2d…

MALICIOUS

PDF

75.8 KB
MD5: 631218806d72358ad65e384cba2e0b50 SHA-1: b5be47c32efe4c683787f27dce934263b15ac920 SHA-256: 456953831bf1ca2dc2b40de57955d0fd0ba8d774b513a345b5c83cc254f3fb3e
196 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The PDF file contains embedded XFA (XML Forms Architecture) data, which is known to be a vector for exploits. Specifically, the 'CVE_2010_0188' heuristic firing indicates the exploitation of a vulnerability in Adobe Reader related to LibTIFF and XFA. The embedded script payload further suggests malicious intent, likely to download and execute a second-stage payload. The ClamAV detection confirms the malicious nature of the file.

Heuristics 7

  • Adobe Reader LibTIFF XFA image exploit — CVE-2010-0188 critical CVE likely CVE_2010_0188
    PDF contains the CVE-2010-0188 exploit template: XFA JavaScript heap-spray setup, a generated TIFF image payload, and assignment of that TIFF data to an XFA image field rawValue to trigger Adobe Reader's LibTIFF parser.
  • XFA form contains executable script high CVE related PDF_XFA_SCRIPT
    PDF embeds an XFA form whose dataset contains a <script> or <xfa:script> block — XFA scripting has been the exploit primitive for several Adobe Reader RCEs (CVE-2010-0188 family, CVE-2018-4901, and others). Plain XFA without scripts is far less risky.
  • ClamAV: Pdf.Exploit.Dropped-78 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Pdf.Exploit.Dropped-78
  • 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
  • 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
8f3b611d994f24a8d5b87c65c41ea6368da7a862b0ab00d6576b49cb90a2d023
pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 8 at offset 0xC6 76833 bytes