Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 a5c9c981201f96be…

MALICIOUS

PDF

9.1 KB First seen: 2026-05-08
MD5: 8cf5819c93520d205cb57a7de45e0947 SHA-1: 72ef38a1804402943220c92f48a0020f490b46fa SHA-256: a5c9c981201f96be42b5cc8f4519d89f59cf0689b62f5dd7a560fe4f737a771c
138 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1204.002 Malicious File T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment T1027 Obfuscated Files or Information

The PDF file exhibits multiple indicators of malicious intent, including an embedded script payload and an embedded file. The presence of an embedded script payload, identified by the 'PDF_EMBEDDED_SCRIPT_PAYLOAD' heuristic, strongly suggests an attempt to execute code upon opening or interaction with the document. The embedded file further supports the hypothesis that this PDF is a delivery mechanism for additional malicious content. The embedded URL, while seemingly benign, is part of the overall structure that facilitates the potential execution of embedded content.

Machine Learning

  • Nyx PDF Classifier malicious score 1.0000

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.
  • Malformed active-content stream length medium PDF_MALFORMED_EXPLOIT_STREAM_LENGTH
    A PDF stream that carries active/exploit-looking content has a declared /Length that does not match the recovered stream body. Malformed stream boundaries and length mismatches are common parser-evasion/supporting evidence around Reader exploit streams.
  • 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
  • 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
  • Embedded script payload in PDF stream info 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.
  • 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/ In PDF document text
    • http://ns.adobe.com/xdp/In PDF document text
    • http://www.xfa.org/schema/xci/1.0/In PDF document text
    • http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-data/1.0/In PDF document text

Extracted artifacts 5

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
embedded_file_obj0041.bin pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 41 at offset 0xCF3 85 bytes
SHA-256: c06dcd026a7ea0536b63e07ce688691b585339a3ab7ff59065e546b56308c7bb
embedded_file_obj0042.bin pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 42 at offset 0xDA5 1029 bytes
SHA-256: dda0835df994b8be920f715db36452f6cee7bb42bbc9c897f878a7b298ba8e91
embedded_file_obj0111.bin pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 111 at offset 0xFBF 57368 bytes
SHA-256: ff9efca35eaa85402ba163dc261f91c37e961f2ae601353c85a1ba4e0519f7e2
embedded_file_obj0044.bin pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 44 at offset 0x1F1E 144 bytes
SHA-256: 3dd68f00f4fcb366a2a3a17c65cb2626eeddf5ea5713302d374310561d810169
embedded_file_obj0045.bin pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 45 at offset 0x1FCB 77 bytes
SHA-256: 10c03f88a5f0a0833dc5b2c8ac295b3a3c6f65e23889eb8cc1dc6fe29bf7f275

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