Malicious PDF — malware analysis report

Static analysis result for SHA-256 f798e8a5ae88fbd5…

MALICIOUS

PDF

79.7 KB
MD5: cd746a1a0d031cbeb990ee965aef1aec SHA-1: 472418cd1b944edfbb593c696c503bab67e7250b SHA-256: f798e8a5ae88fbd568f00662f18b2121f2d2796d37e27190780cd1db9a188ea4
160 Risk Score

Malware Insights

MITRE ATT&CK
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution

The PDF file contains an embedded XFA form with a critical heuristic firing for CVE-2010-0188, indicating exploitation of a vulnerability in Adobe Reader. This exploit is designed to download and execute a second-stage payload. ClamAV also detected the file as Pdf.Exploit.Dropped-90.

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
c228f92e9b076373519e6818932464c8cfbbec7c6b9d2b30681d63ee78fb045b
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).