Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 5d6a2626b3aa1cfb…

MALICIOUS

PDF

79.7 KB
MD5: cb49dc73aeff3e84a9dc1ecdbe178d77 SHA-1: f4b423c931811306e44e11ff831d4ad27b5c74d8 SHA-256: 5d6a2626b3aa1cfbcdea7ed6ca21079af9f7ae2f8c0d888e3fc0c5bdd3a5d5b1
192 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is a PDF document identified as malicious by multiple heuristics, including a critical finding for CVE-2010-0188, an Adobe Reader exploit targeting XFA forms. This exploit likely allows for the execution of arbitrary code, enabling the download and execution of a secondary payload, as suggested by the embedded file artifact. The ML classifier also strongly indicates maliciousness.

Machine Learning

  • Nyx PDF Classifier malicious score 1.0000

Heuristics 8

  • 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.
  • 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/xci/1.0/
    • http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-template/2.4/
    • http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-data/1.0/
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xtd/
    • http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-form/2.8/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
embedded_file_obj0001.bin
b469b29c4f6d7a8697070768a494a8f4fb49f2c68223500708ddd65792d46f95
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).