Mastering Metasploit - Second Edition

File format-based exploitation

We will be covering various attacks on the victim using malicious files in this section. Therefore, whenever these malicious files run, it provides meterpreter or shell access to the target system. In the next section, we will cover exploitation using malicious document and PDF files.

PDF-based exploits

PDF file format-based exploits are those that trigger vulnerabilities in various PDF readers and parsers, which when are made to execute the payload carrying PDF files, presenting the attacker with complete access to the target system in the form of a meterpreter shell or a command shell. However, before getting into the technique, let's see what vulnerability we are targeting and what the environment details are: