Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 af8f14dfdf6b0a6b…

MALICIOUS

PDF

31.3 KB
MD5: 98cca020ad9d42592d2b9af9e085623a SHA-1: 1e65ef4eb5ce5f096a7c9045c3a8e3926470e890 SHA-256: af8f14dfdf6b0a6b530f676bdaeffd4e6600de3ecfe2877e00288235db14db1c
230 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The PDF file contains XFA (XML Forms Architecture) content that leverages a known vulnerability, CVE-2010-0188, in Adobe Reader to execute a JavaScript stager. This stager, identified as 'xfa_numeric_stage_000.js', is responsible for downloading and executing a second-stage payload. The embedded URL, while benign in appearance, is part of the exploit chain. The ClamAV detections further confirm the malicious nature of the file.

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.
  • ClamAV: Js.Exploit.HTML-30 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Js.Exploit.HTML-30
  • ClamAV detection on extracted artifact critical EXTRACTED_FILE_CLAMAV
    ClamAV flagged at least one file extracted from inside this sample. Even when the wrapping document carries no AV detection of its own, a hit on the carved artifact is a strong indicator the sample is a delivery vehicle.
  • XFA numeric JavaScript stager high PDF_XFA_NUMERIC_JS_STAGER
    PDF XFA script reconstructs a hidden JavaScript stage from numeric field data or a character table, then evals the result. The decoder is gated on XFA script, numeric staging, and recovered exploit-like JavaScript or shellcode markers.
  • XFA form low PDF_XFA
    PDF uses XML Forms Architecture — can contain script logic
  • 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-template/2.5/

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
xfa_numeric_stage_000.js
ed5d0c541473ef44c1a3361eaaca59b63b32a624e2469d9b9d392789e3cbfa85
deobfuscated-js XFA rawValue numeric decoded JavaScript (raw) at offset 0x3F0 3735 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: Pdf.Exploit.Agent-36962
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 5 eval/decoder/string-building token(s). Carved artifact contains 3 long base64-like blob(s).