Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 9ae707ae87b9580c…

MALICIOUS

PDF

825.5 KB Created: 2011-05-17 09:02:18 Authoring application: Joomla! 1.5 - Open Source Content Management (via TCPDF 3.0.015 (http://www.tcpdf.org))
MD5: b7382048a9a7c49f72374b409d0b51cd SHA-1: 4d435660ff179bc9fd12a2869f8141d81b5d72f6 SHA-256: 9ae707ae87b9580c34779e60da78c05cf6b7acc9c2be37617eee892d332253c6
76 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The PDF file contains an embedded JavaScript stream and triggers a heuristic for the CVE-2008-2551 exploit, indicating it's designed to download and execute a secondary payload. The embedded URL 'http://artisanballoonz.com/system/system.exe' is highly suspicious and likely the location of this payload. The PDF's structure also suggests an attempt to exploit a vulnerability to achieve code execution.

Heuristics 4

  • C6 Messenger DownloaderActiveX exploit critical CVE exact CVE_2008_2551
    PDF stream bytes contain HTML/ActiveX content configuring the vulnerable C6 Messenger DownloaderActiveX control with propDownloadUrl and propPostDownloadAction=run. This is the published exploit shape for CVE-2008-2551.
  • Embedded JS stream low PDF_JS
    PDF references a /JS stream. Generic JavaScript is common in benign forms; specific dangerous APIs are scored by separate rules.
  • Optional Content Group with action trigger low PDF_OPTIONAL_CONTENT
    Optional Content Group (layer) co-occurs with an action trigger — content can be selectively hidden from viewers or scanners while the action still fires on open
  • 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://artisanballoonz.com/system/system.exe
    • http://c6.community.alice.it/download/DownloaderActiveX.cab#Version=1,0,0,1

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
stream_002_off000007a6.bin
80ce46be3b4d5733393d911e720cc341eac961413bc8841086c1643fee9fc14b
decompressed-pdf-stream PDF FlateDecoded stream at offset 0x7A6 73272 bytes