Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 979a8dc3ee040cb4…

MALICIOUS

PDF

13.3 KB
MD5: aa3343530c59d975de353be548644563 SHA-1: 70fea7c080eb5485d292d3e7a8746b5127becdd4 SHA-256: 979a8dc3ee040cb4664cd924db505a2b84689d418e80aa2ef515cb2189d47660
154 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The sample is a PDF document that exploits CVE-2010-0188, a known vulnerability in Adobe Reader related to XFA forms. The critical heuristic firing and ClamAV detection confirm its malicious nature. The embedded JavaScript, while obfuscated, likely facilitates the download and execution of a second-stage payload, as indicated by the 'EXTRACTED_FILE_STATIC_TRIAGE' heuristic and the presence of embedded files. The URL provided is likely related to the XFA form structure but does not appear to be directly malicious.

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.
  • ClamAV: Pdf.Exploit.Agent-36962 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Pdf.Exploit.Agent-36962
  • 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
  • String.fromCharCode low PDF_FROMCHARCODE
    String.fromCharCode found — used to construct payload strings dynamically. Common in benign JavaScript libraries for codepoint manipulation, so this alone is informational; weaponised use is also caught by the dedicated fromCharCode-stage and exploit-shape rules. (matched inside decoded stream)
  • AcroForm button with action trigger low PDF_ACROFORM_BUTTON
    PDF contains a /Btn form field together with a SubmitForm/URI/Launch/JS trigger — this is the building block of fake 'Download' or 'Open' button overlays used in PDF phishing lures
  • 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://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-locale-set/2.1/

Extracted artifacts 6

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
embedded_file_obj0041.bin
c06dcd026a7ea0536b63e07ce688691b585339a3ab7ff59065e546b56308c7bb
pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 41 at offset 0x26DD 85 bytes
embedded_file_obj0042.bin
dda0835df994b8be920f715db36452f6cee7bb42bbc9c897f878a7b298ba8e91
pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 42 at offset 0x278F 1029 bytes
embedded_file_obj0043.bin
d79308b0e06f22ae21b31645f5d8041321f8463367ba683e40e8f49c50313ef4
pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 43 at offset 0x29A8 1667 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 1 eval/decoder/string-building token(s).
embedded_file_obj0044.bin
3dd68f00f4fcb366a2a3a17c65cb2626eeddf5ea5713302d374310561d810169
pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 44 at offset 0x2D6E 144 bytes
embedded_file_obj0045.bin
10c03f88a5f0a0833dc5b2c8ac295b3a3c6f65e23889eb8cc1dc6fe29bf7f275
pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 45 at offset 0x2E1A 77 bytes
xfa_metadata_stage_000.js
4a7e0403ed392ad3241ae2457e555b77a0db7ce2becd8a45852a009150f90bb7
deobfuscated-js XFA /keywords base-29 decoded JavaScript (raw) at offset 0xDEB 2181 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 5 eval/decoder/string-building token(s). Carved artifact contains 3 long base64-like blob(s).