Publication Date

Spring 2019

Degree Type

Master's Project

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Computer Science

First Advisor

Robert Chun

Second Advisor

Mike Wu

Third Advisor

Navneet Goel

Keywords

cyber-attacks, malware, Portable Document Format (PDF)

Abstract

Cyber-attacks are growing day by day and attackers are finding new techniques to cause harm to their target by spreading worms and malware. In the world of innovations and new technologies coming out every day, it creates a possibility of attacking a system and exploiting the vulnerabilities present in the system. One of the methods used for the spread of malware is the Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Due to the flexible nature of these files, it is becoming a sweet spot for the attackers to embed the malware easily into the PDF files. In this report, we are going to understand this flexibility provided by the PDF development and why the bad actors find it easy to embed viruses or malware into the PDF files. We will then look at how we can develop methods and techniques using python script to identify the malicious files and stop it from harming the systems in your network.

Download

Share

COinS