CVE-2018-4993 is an information disclosure vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat and Reader (versions 2018.011.20038 and earlier, 2017.011.30079 and earlier, and 2015.006.30417 and earlier) that allows attackers to steal NTLM SSO hashes. The vulnerability is exploited by embedding remote documents in a PDF file. When a user opens the malicious PDF, the Windows PDF viewer automatically attempts to fetch the remote resource, causing the system to leak NTLM credentials (hash, challenge, user, host name, and domain) via SMB to an attacker-controlled server, without any user interaction or warning.
Mallory correlates every CVE against your assets, your vendors, and active adversary campaigns. Know which vulnerabilities matter for you, not just which ones are loud.
What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.
What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.
If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.
Patch, then assume compromise.
1 valid exploit after Mallory filtered fakes, detection scripts, and README-only repos.
This repository contains a single Metasploit auxiliary module, 'badpdf.rb', which generates malicious PDF files designed to exploit CVE-2018-4993. The module can either create a new PDF or inject a payload into an existing PDF. The payload is a UNC link (e.g., \\attacker_host\test) that, when the PDF is opened on a Windows system, causes the system to attempt authentication to an attacker-controlled SMB/WebDAV server, leaking NetNTLM credentials. The attacker must specify the LHOST (the server to receive the authentication attempt) and either a FILENAME for a new PDF or a PDFINJECT path for an existing PDF. The module is written in Ruby and is intended for use within the Metasploit Framework. No hardcoded endpoints are present; the attacker supplies the LHOST at runtime. The exploit targets Windows systems and leverages the way PDF readers handle embedded UNC links.
Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.
Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.
No public activity tracked yet. Mallory keeps watching.
No public activity observed for this vulnerability.
Query your assets running an affected version, and investigate the blast radius.
Every observed campaign linking this CVE to a named adversary.
Malware families riding this exploit, with evidence and IOCs.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.
Community discussion across Reddit, Mastodon, and other social sources.