Common Tactics Used by Threat Actors to Weaponize PDFs

In the large and advanced world of cybersecurity, risk customarily hides in presumably the most unsuspecting corners, stalking stealthily the save our guard is least willing.

While the threats, esteem timeless adversaries, customarily contain and display no indicators of disappearing into anonymity.

Cybersecurity analysts at Trustwave SpiderLabs no longer too long prior to now noticed an uptick in risk actors the usage of PDFs for e-mail-based totally mostly preliminary bag right of entry to, highlighting a rising pattern in evasive ways.

PDF enables constant textual whine and film trace across gadgets, making it good for electronic documents esteem-

• Resumes
• Manuals
• Invoices
• Kinds

Issues attract risk actors to PDF

Here underneath, we now have mentioned the final key things that attract the risk actors in direction of PDF recordsdata:-

• Ubiquity
• Trustworthiness
• Scenario in Detection

Recommendations and Recommendations Worn

Here underneath, we now have mentioned the final ways and suggestions that risk actors customarily exercise to weaponize PDF recordsdata:-

• Malicious Hyperlinks: A PDF hyperlink is a clickable factor that directs customers to exterior assets. Attackers exploit this by embedding malicious links, customarily main to phishing or malware, as considered in Qakbot and IcedID campaigns.

• Qakbot: Qakbot’s evolving ways consist of the usage of PDFs with disguised malicious links to ship payloads, customarily posing as expert updates to trick customers into downloading malware.

• Actions and JavaScript: PDFs offer interactivity via actions and JavaScript, but attackers can exploit these for malicious applications, posing security risks.

• PDF Dropper: Researchers learned a PDF with JavaScript action launching an embedded Office Doc, examined the usage of Didier Stevens’ pdfid tool.

• Vulnerabilities in PDF Reader: Exploiting PDF reader vulnerabilities, esteem CVE-2021-28550, can grant attackers keep watch over over unpatched Adobe Acrobat readers. A decade prior to now, PDF exploits had been frequent, but with the upward thrust of various PDF readers and built-in browser make stronger, the risk panorama has shifted, and in-the-wild exploitation has lowered.

• Social Engineering: Threat actors exercise social engineering to deceive customers into opening PDF recordsdata, customarily in pretend label or service emails, aiming to extract sensitive files. These PDFs seem expert but wait on malicious applications.

• Call-back Phishing: Cybercriminals exercise PDF invoice emails from generic, undisclosed senders to maintain urgency and instructed victims to demand subscription updates, deceiving them.

PDFs remain a top preference for risk actors resulting from their huge exercise and depraved-platform compatibility, presenting an ongoing opportunity for cybercriminals.

Indicators of Compromise

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