• Sublime Core Feed
Medium Severity

Attachment: PDF with link to DMG file download

Labels

Malware/Ransomware
Evasion
PDF
Archive analysis
Content analysis
File analysis
URL analysis

Description

This rule identifies PDF attachments that either link directly to a DMG file, link to a ZIP archive containing a DMG file, or link to an encrypted ZIP containing a DMG file. This technique has been observed delivering MetaStealer Malware.

References

Sublime Security
Created Sep 13th, 2023 • Last updated Jul 16th, 2025
Feed Source
Sublime Core Feed
Source
GitHub
type.inbound
and any(attachments,
        .file_type == "pdf"
        and any(file.explode(.),
                any(.scan.url.urls,

                    // url links to dmg or zip
                    (
                      strings.iends_with(.url, ".dmg") or strings.iends_with(.url, "zip")
                    )

                    // and downloads a dmg or a zip
                    and any(ml.link_analysis(.).files_downloaded,
                            (
                              .file_extension == "dmg"
                              or (
                                .file_extension in~ $file_extensions_common_archives

                                // and the zip contains a dmg file
                                and any(file.explode(.),
                                        (.file_extension =~ "dmg")

                                        // exif inspection if encrypted
                                        or strings.ends_with(.scan.exiftool.zip_file_name, ".dmg")
                                )
                              )
                            )
                    )
                )
        )
)
and (
  profile.by_sender().prevalence in ("new", "outlier")
  or (
    profile.by_sender().any_messages_malicious_or_spam
    and not profile.by_sender().any_messages_benign
  )
)
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