I have had several unknown persons send PDF attachments with email
lately. I have a policy, if I dont recognise the name of the sender,
the email is deleted. however on occasion I will email a business and
will get a reply from an address not containing the business name but
from someone that works there. In that case, if I am expecting some
reply from a business, I will read the text portion of emails that
might be from such a source, and on several occasions what looked to
be spam was actually such a reply. However, unless I know the person,
no attachments are ever opened. Anyhow, I keep getting these PDF
files lately. My guess is that they are just advertising, but I wont
open them, and just delete them. My question is whether a PDF can
contain a virus or spyware? I know that .exe files, screen savers,
..zip and other compressed files can, and I have heard of a few
occasions where pictures can contain at least some sort of bad code.
I never heard anything about PDF's one way or the other.

Thanks for replies

Greg

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
gregpatterson@-invalid-.com says...
> I have had several unknown persons send PDF attachments with email
> lately. I have a policy, if I dont recognise the name of the sender,
> the email is deleted. however on occasion I will email a business and
> will get a reply from an address not containing the business name but
> from someone that works there. In that case, if I am expecting some
> reply from a business, I will read the text portion of emails that
> might be from such a source, and on several occasions what looked to
> be spam was actually such a reply. However, unless I know the person,
> no attachments are ever opened. Anyhow, I keep getting these PDF
> files lately. My guess is that they are just advertising, but I wont
> open them, and just delete them. My question is whether a PDF can
> contain a virus or spyware? I know that .exe files, screen savers,
> .zip and other compressed files can, and I have heard of a few
> occasions where pictures can contain at least some sort of bad code.
> I never heard anything about PDF's one way or the other.
>
> Thanks for replies
>
> Greg
>
Type "pdf virus" into Google and check the first hit.
--
Snob? Were I a snob, I wouldn't be talking to you.

gregpatterson@-invalid-.com wrote:

> I have had several unknown persons send PDF attachments with email
> lately. ...
> ... Anyhow, I keep getting these PDF files lately. My guess is that
> they are just advertising, but I wont open them, and just delete
> them.

I've gotten a few spams recently where the spam message was a page of
PDF. It was a stock scam. Apparently, the spammers are switching from
using graphics (JPEGS) to PDFs in a further attempt to get past filters.

Save the PDF file to your hard disk and scan it.

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

My Yahoo account has received hundreds of those attachments. Just
delete them - they are most likely advertising for stocks, medicines
and such. The PDF's are probably obfuscated so SPAM OCR engines
can't filter them out.

What's to keep you from doing an on-demand virus scan with your resident AV
product. It is more thorough than trying to establish unilaterally if "pdf's
contain viruses"

Charlie

<gregpatterson@-invalid-.com> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have had several unknown persons send PDF attachments with email
> lately. I have a policy, if I dont recognise the name of the sender,
> the email is deleted. however on occasion I will email a business and
> will get a reply from an address not containing the business name but
> from someone that works there. In that case, if I am expecting some
> reply from a business, I will read the text portion of emails that
> might be from such a source, and on several occasions what looked to
> be spam was actually such a reply. However, unless I know the person,
> no attachments are ever opened. Anyhow, I keep getting these PDF
> files lately. My guess is that they are just advertising, but I wont
> open them, and just delete them. My question is whether a PDF can
> contain a virus or spyware? I know that .exe files, screen savers,
> .zip and other compressed files can, and I have heard of a few
> occasions where pictures can contain at least some sort of bad code.
> I never heard anything about PDF's one way or the other.
>
> Thanks for replies
>
> Greg

gregpatterson@-invalid-.com wrote:

> I have had several unknown persons send PDF attachments with
> email lately.

As I don't use Outlook or OE, I'll ask this question:

Does Outlook or OE render PDF attachments in the message preview pane?

Are you sure the attachments are really PDF? A file can have a .PDF
extension but internally the file is a .jpg or .gif (or .exe), etc.

Virus Guy wrote:
> gregpatterson@-invalid-.com wrote:
>
>> I have had several unknown persons send PDF attachments with
>> email lately.
>
> As I don't use Outlook or OE, I'll ask this question:
>
> Does Outlook or OE render PDF attachments in the message preview pane?
>
> Are you sure the attachments are really PDF? A file can have a .PDF
> extension but internally the file is a .jpg or .gif (or .exe), etc.

Jeanette wrote:

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=1718

On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:02:34 -0500, "Charlie" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>What's to keep you from doing an on-demand virus scan with your resident AV
>product. It is more thorough than trying to establish unilaterally if "pdf's
>contain viruses"
>
>Charlie
>

Thanks for all the replies....

Yes, I could do all of this scanning and so on.....
However, my time is more valuable than wasting it on spam.
The delete key does the job.
I was just asking to find out the facts. The files were actually
..PDF, not with .exe or something else at the end. I am sure it's just
some sort of stock or drug crap as always. Not worth my time.

Good day !

><gregpatterson@-invalid-.com> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>I have had several unknown persons send PDF attachments with email
>> lately. I have a policy, if I dont recognise the name of the sender,
>> the email is deleted. however on occasion I will email a business and
>> will get a reply from an address not containing the business name but
>> from someone that works there. In that case, if I am expecting some
>> reply from a business, I will read the text portion of emails that
>> might be from such a source, and on several occasions what looked to
>> be spam was actually such a reply. However, unless I know the person,
>> no attachments are ever opened. Anyhow, I keep getting these PDF
>> files lately. My guess is that they are just advertising, but I wont
>> open them, and just delete them. My question is whether a PDF can
>> contain a virus or spyware? I know that .exe files, screen savers,
>> .zip and other compressed files can, and I have heard of a few
>> occasions where pictures can contain at least some sort of bad code.
>> I never heard anything about PDF's one way or the other.
>>
>> Thanks for replies
>>
>> Greg

<gregpatterson@-invalid-.com> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have had several unknown persons send PDF attachments with email
> lately. I have a policy, if I dont recognise the name of the sender,
> the email is deleted. however on occasion I will email a business and
> will get a reply from an address not containing the business name but
> from someone that works there. In that case, if I am expecting some
> reply from a business, I will read the text portion of emails that
> might be from such a source, and on several occasions what looked to
> be spam was actually such a reply. However, unless I know the person,
> no attachments are ever opened. Anyhow, I keep getting these PDF
> files lately. My guess is that they are just advertising, but I wont
> open them, and just delete them. My question is whether a PDF can
> contain a virus or spyware? I know that .exe files, screen savers,
> .zip and other compressed files can, and I have heard of a few
> occasions where pictures can contain at least some sort of bad code.
> I never heard anything about PDF's one way or the other.


What makes you think a .pdf attachment to an e-mail must be a PDF
document? Files can be named anything.

"Vanguard" <(E-Mail Removed)> a écrit dans le message news:
nM6dnVUm-(E-Mail Removed)...
> <gregpatterson@-invalid-.com> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> >I have had several unknown persons send PDF attachments with email
> > lately. I have a policy, if I dont recognise the name of the sender,
> > the email is deleted. however on occasion I will email a business and
> > will get a reply from an address not containing the business name but
> > from someone that works there. In that case, if I am expecting some
> > reply from a business, I will read the text portion of emails that
> > might be from such a source, and on several occasions what looked to
> > be spam was actually such a reply. However, unless I know the person,
> > no attachments are ever opened. Anyhow, I keep getting these PDF
> > files lately. My guess is that they are just advertising, but I wont
> > open them, and just delete them. My question is whether a PDF can
> > contain a virus or spyware? I know that .exe files, screen savers,
> > .zip and other compressed files can, and I have heard of a few
> > occasions where pictures can contain at least some sort of bad code.
> > I never heard anything about PDF's one way or the other.
>
>
> What makes you think a .pdf attachment to an e-mail must be a PDF
> document? Files can be named anything.
>

As a personal comment, I also received a lot of these pdf files. Those files
open normally when dregged in a foxit reader window, under a protected
environment. No alarm rings. However I suspect that double clicking on such
a file would lead to different results. Am I right or wrong ?