Saturday, February 11, 2017

Quick and dirty malicious PDF analysis

Analyzing weird things forwarded by friends and family is a great way to keep my DFIR skills sharp.

Friends and family regularly send me things they find suspicious or weird. Sometimes it turns out to be malicious, and other times perfectly fine, but I'm always glad to know I've instilled a proper degree of skepticism in my friends.

My willingness to help has an ulterior motive: aside from the "herd immunity" that comes from helping those around me stay safe, analyzing weird things they see helps me keep my own skills sharp. It also can alert me to new or resurging threats, such as the Disney theme park scams so common around customary family travel periods.

Today's story is about a phish. A simple phish, but one with lots of red flags to call out, and that called to my attention some new features Google introduced in Chrome last month. As with many phish, this one begins with an email. Nothing fancy, just a brief memo that a voice message has arrived.