Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 8987cbdfe57f9606…

MALICIOUS

PDF

90.0 KB
MD5: 7c8c27d57419b043396f26593fd2382e SHA-1: 3e79ae799e12ec1c39e87de6804aaed3ad65316d SHA-256: 8987cbdfe57f9606703d5bc86cd7ac0c019d1c7a94e48bccd6fbf850fb213a52
268 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1059.007 JavaScript/JScript

The sample is a PDF file that utilizes XFA (XML Forms Architecture) to deliver a heap-spray exploit targeting CVE-2010-0188 in Adobe Reader. The embedded XFA script is designed to trigger this exploit, leading to arbitrary code execution. The ClamAV detection and heuristic firings strongly indicate this malicious behavior.

Heuristics 8

  • 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.
  • XFA JavaScript heap-spray exploit code critical PDF_XFA_HEAP_SPRAY
    PDF contains XFA script content with heap-spray or shellcode-like JavaScript markers such as large encoded word sequences, util.pack, large arrays, or spray variable names. This is a weaponised Adobe Reader exploit pattern, not a normal interactive form.
  • ClamAV: Pdf.Exploit.Agent-6136306-0 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Pdf.Exploit.Agent-6136306-0
  • 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.
  • Suspicious extracted artifact medium 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.
  • 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_pdf_script_0000023c.bin
dae3db4fcbe1ca62966410bbe885a2ad3175c3a1f84d3b0b7738f6b920760095
pdf-embedded-script PDF raw stream script payload at offset 0x23C 91488 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 1 eval/decoder/string-building token(s).