Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 d444dfe216985eca…

MALICIOUS

PDF

50.7 KB
MD5: a45a7fcca2748d9f39d77f8434d1c250 SHA-1: 0dad332e4bfd5270c45825029896acc1144fb050 SHA-256: d444dfe216985ecac4741776a3ab4a9b77b20aa24d6addacbcf1d180dae31499
196 Risk Score

Malware Insights

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

The PDF file contains embedded XFA (XML Forms Architecture) data which is exploited via CVE-2010-0188, a known vulnerability in Adobe Reader. This exploit allows for the execution of arbitrary code. The embedded script payload further indicates malicious intent, likely to download and execute a second-stage payload. The ClamAV detection confirms 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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_file_obj0008.bin
2174ee554854b7d190162a5b190e6decd25160f49dce0e2c5417c7972772f557
pdf-embedded-file PDF EmbeddedFile object 8 at offset 0xC8 51159 bytes