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Pierluigi Paganini February 13, 2022
Analyzing Phishing attacks that use malicious PDFs

Cybersecurity researchers Zoziel Pinto Freire analyzed the use of weaponized PDFs in phishing attacks Every day everybody receives many phishing attacks with malicious docs or PDFs. I decided to take a look at one of these files. I did a static analysis and I went straight to the point to make this reading simple and […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 27, 2020
Shadow attacks allow replacing content in signed PDF files

Boffins from the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany) have disclosed a series of new attack methods, dubbed Shadow attacks, against signed PDF files. Security researchers from the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany) have devised a series of new attack techniques, dubbed Shadow attacks, against signed PDF files. In February 2019, the same team of experts found several […]

Pierluigi Paganini February 28, 2019
PDF zero-day samples harvest user data when opened in Chrome

Experts at Exploit detection service EdgeSpot detected several PDF documents that exploit a zero-day flaw in Chrome to harvest user data. Exploit detection service EdgeSpot spotted several PDF documents that exploit a zero-day vulnerability in Chrome to harvest data on users who open the files through the popular web browser. The experts initially detected the […]

Pierluigi Paganini February 27, 2019
Experts devised 3 attacks Show Signed PDF Documents Cannot Be Trusted

Experts found several flaws in popular PDF viewers and online validation services that allow to deceive the digital signature validation process. Several PDF viewers and online validation services contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited to make unauthorized changes to signed PDF documents without invalidating their digital signature. A group of academics from the German Ruhr-University […]

Pierluigi Paganini February 13, 2019
Malicious PDF Analysis

In the last few days I have done some analysis on malicious documents, especially PDF. Then I thought, “Why not turn a PDF analysis into an article?” Let’s go to our case study: I received a scan request for a PDF file that was reported to support an antivirus vendor, and it replied that the […]

Pierluigi Paganini April 28, 2018
How to use weaponized PDF documents to steal Windows credentials

Weaponized documents are the main ingredient for almost any spam and spear-phishing campaign, let’s see how to steal windows credentials with specially crafted PDF files. Weaponized documents are the main ingredient for almost any spam and spear-phishing campaign. Weaponized PDF files can be used by threat actors to steal Windows credentials, precisely the associated NTLM […]

Pierluigi Paganini May 01, 2013
Adobe Reader vulnerability reveals where a PDF is opened

The McAfee security firm found an Adobe Reader vulnerability that reveals where a PDF document is opened. The McAfee security firm found an Adobe Reader vulnerability that reveals where a PDF document is opened, once again Adobe products are the center of attention of security experts after the numerous attacks that have exploited flaws in its products for cyber espionage campaigns. […]