Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 b991329807822fe9…

MALICIOUS

PDF

40.4 KB
MD5: a38595159771627b353bc60dae770019 SHA-1: 5d082fb4f29feae0c34a53240cb493914fb3296b SHA-256: b991329807822fe9d35247d8e3d458c7c4c6fe93b311f721b8af5e808ca69aa7
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The file is a PDF document that contains an embedded file and triggers the CVE-2010-0188 exploit. This exploit targets a vulnerability in Adobe Reader related to the LibTIFF library, allowing for the execution of arbitrary code. The embedded file likely contains the secondary payload. The ClamAV detection further confirms its malicious nature.

Heuristics 7

  • Adobe Reader LibTIFF XFA image exploit — CVE-2010-0188 critical CVE likely CVE_2010_0188
    PDF contains XFA image data with an inline crafted TIFF payload and shellcode/delivery markers. This is the data-bound variant of the CVE-2010-0188 Adobe Reader LibTIFF/XFA exploit shape.
  • ClamAV: Pdf.Exploit.Dropped-90 critical CLAMAV_DETECTION
    ClamAV detected this file as malware: Pdf.Exploit.Dropped-90
  • ASCIIHexDecode filter (with exploit indicators) medium PDF_FILTER_HEX
    Hex-encoding filter present alongside exploit delivery indicators — often used to hide payload or shellcode bytes
  • 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
  • PDF differential parser failed info PDF_DIFFERENTIAL_PARSE_FAILED
    The cross-check parser (pdfminer.six) failed on this file: PDF differential parser failed: PSSyntaxError. Static heuristics still ran and any of their findings above are valid; only the differential cross-check signal is missing.
  • 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.

Extracted artifacts 1

Files carved from inside the sample during analysis.

FilenameKindSourceSize
embedded_file_obj0001.bin
7cf8d6717499feb081fe5cad08f60ed84d6a4ae959afa9f3559a5967743364c1
pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 1 at offset 0x5B 13415 bytes
Detection
ClamAV: No threats found
Obfuscation or payload: likely
Carved artifact contains 1 long base64-like blob(s).