Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a2538d78c7456f57…

MALICIOUS

PDF

111.5 KB
MD5: c2d5af5f1f4fc6b2d059dfbae3795b63 SHA-1: c56b4f415f629ca8c9cb9ab1181fa65b119b09b3 SHA-256: a2538d78c7456f5754c787228ca77ecd88549c6fbb08375a353152e98a396a8c
248 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution T1059.001 PowerShell

The PDF file contains XFA (XML Forms Architecture) content, which is known to be a vector for exploits. Specifically, the 'PDF_XFA_HEAP_SPRAY' and 'CVE_2010_0188' heuristics indicate the presence of exploit code targeting a heap spray vulnerability in Adobe Reader. The embedded script payload further confirms malicious intent, likely to download and execute a second-stage payload. The ClamAV detection ID 'Pdf.Exploit.Agent-6136306-0' also supports this assessment.

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.
  • 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.
  • 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_0000023b.bin
91d937d7440d76fb6bbbafe96a4a6a965c6eaf869782cfa681ab66ebf0297fb5
pdf-embedded-script PDF raw stream script payload at offset 0x23B 113417 bytes