Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 45b274745820a3cd…

MALICIOUS

PDF

12.7 KB
MD5: bcc72356865849c2d9362d0b9b063193 SHA-1: 03fd1167f3a7495eb920d9c982e4f496cf97625b SHA-256: 45b274745820a3cd713918f79d0a08f5d3ff07b0ff2b97eb208a78f84abf3b21
248 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File: User Execution T1566.001 Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment T1059.001 Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell

The sample is a PDF file that leverages an XFA form to exploit CVE-2010-0188 in Adobe Reader. The embedded script payload, detected by ClamAV as Pdf.Exploit.Agent-6136306-0, is indicative of a downloader or dropper. The presence of an embedded script and the XFA exploit strongly suggest the file is designed to execute arbitrary code upon opening in a vulnerable reader.

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.Agent-6136306-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Pdf.Exploit.Agent-6136306-0
  • ClamAV detection on extracted artifact critical EXTRACTED_FILE_CLAMAV
    ClamAV flagged at least one file extracted from inside this sample. Even when the wrapping document carries no AV detection of its own, a hit on the carved artifact is a strong indicator the sample is a delivery vehicle.
  • 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.
  • 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://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-template/2.5/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
embedded_pdf_script_00000374.bin
a32fe65771fa7bc55587bfbbcb7150dd968518b1651e13ed636469bb04d0ff2d
pdf-embedded-script PDF raw stream script payload at offset 0x374 12240 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Pdf.Exploit.Agent-36756
Obfuscation or payload: unlikely