2014/05/17

secrets
PDF
hiding & revealing secrets in PDF documents
Mannheim Germany
RaumZeitLabor
Ange Albertini
CTF PDF stegano 101
reverse engineering
&
visual documentations
corkami.com
The problem
You need to remove sensitive elements
of a PDF document for public release
are they actually removed ?
can someone reveal your secrets ?
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/05/pdf_radacting_f.html
Its not a new fact
http://download.repubblica.it/pdf/rapportousacalipari.pdf
seen in its metadata: EmailSubject (Another Redact Job For You)
You just need to:
1. uncompress the PDF
2. remove all re\n occurences
(re = rectangle operator)
There are
plenty of real
examples
AFAIK
the topic wasnt really
covered technically
The reverse problem
You need to carry a sensible PDF,
or exfiltrate some information:
Can you convincingly pretend
that it was a mistake,
and yet easily re-enable the contents?
...and, more importantly...
it still makes it an interesting exercise
to learn and experiment with PDF internals
...and it might also be useful for a CTF steganography challenge...
its about hiding
parts of the PDF document
not hiding data in a PDF file
+ nothing reader-specific
General outline of this talk
3 relatively independent parts:
1. a non-technical approach
2. a basic introduction to the PDF file format
3. a technical perspective
a non-technical approach
Part I / III
What about that NSA doc ?
there is an NSA document on the topic.
worth a read, but Adobe Acrobat (Pro) only
http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/app/pdf_risks.pdf
Preamble
this presentation has a lot of hands-on examples,
that you can find at:
http://pdf.corkami.com
Outline
1. the problem (introduction)
2. outline
a. see Google recursion
3. examples
a. color
i. forgotten text
b. overlapped text
c. secured documents
i. bypassing security
d. overlapped image
i. extracting image
4. Conclusion
So, you tried to hide
elements in a PDF...
well, I dont see them anymore
try with the next slide:
nothing is visible and yet...
1. Select All text with your favorite PDF viewer
2. Copy and paste in a text editor
You cant work on these slides via online viewing like SlideShare:
it displays rendered pictures of the PDF file, not the file itself
try in a dedicated viewer with the PDF file itself
Example: color
hidden via
white color
hint
It worked, right?
you cant see the text,
but its still on the page
the software can select it
Example: color
hidden via
white color
Btw...
this can lead to unexpected results,
so be careful before publishing slides,
even if you think you have nothing to remove
try with next slide
HyperVortex 1.0
a publication software
Roberto Martinez
title
authors
insert stupid footer here -- LaTeX sucks!!!
god, I hate making slides!!!
Example: forgotten text
Oops
maybe it wasnt a secret to be removed,
buts still there!
put extra hidden content for easier indexing
god, I hate making slides!!!
Example: forgotten text
HyperVortex 1.0
a publication software
title
Roberto Martinez
authors
insert stupid footer here -- LaTeX sucks!!!
Another try
Try to get the secret from the next slide,
with the same copy-paste trick...
Example: overlapped text
hidden via
overlapping shape
CONFIDENTIAL
Once again...
the text is behind the CONFIDENTIAL shape,
but its still there!
the software selects everything
(not only the front layer)
Example: overlapped text
CONFIDENTIAL
hidden via
overlapping shape
pdftotext does it for you
instantly see which text is still hidden
Better than Select all
D:\>pdftotext -layout -l 1 "PDF Secrets.pdf"
Syntax Warning (631): Badly formatted number
D:\>_
PDF
secrets
hiding & revealing
secrets in PDF documents
But PDF can prevent that?
yes, in theory
but the text is still there, and decrypted
it can be circumvented
either:
some readers just ignore it
like Evince
generate a new file out of the original one
print PDF as PDF
(not 100% compatible, but fast and usually works)
decrypt
Bypassing copy/paste protection
D:\>qpdf -decrypt protected.pdf unprotected.pdf
D:\>_
1. open in chrome
2. print
1. change printer as Save as PDF
2. Save
final document looks identical
not (SECURED) anymore
sometimes, text can be copied,
but it comes as corrupted
its not protection, just incompatibility
try with another reader
it could be abused
but its not easy to implement
and its still easy to recover content
(its just a substitution cipher)
Copy/paste corruption
copy/paste weirdness
Ok, a last one
is it hopeless?
try this one...
Example: overlapped image
SECRET
Failure?
the secret behind the shape is a picture:
its not copied as text by standard software
(common softwares dont copy pictures)
Example: overlapped image
SECRET
Does it means were safe?
No:
the image is still present in the PDF document.
its trivial to extract it with a standard tool
Example:
use PDFImages (or mutool)
extracting our secret image directly from the file
D:\>pdfimages -f 32 -l 32 "PDF Secrets.pdf" .
D:\>_
D:\>mutool extract "PDF Secrets.pdf"
extracting image img-0015.png
extracting image img-0016.png
...
Conclusion
on Part I / III
text can be copied
images can be extracted
the Select All trick often works,
but not always
even if Select All does not work,
secrets may still be recovered
but there are
more advanced tricks!
need to study PDF internals
PDF 101
basics of the PDF file format
Part II / III
My poster on the PDF format (free to print, reuse) http://pics.corkami.com
to order a print: http://prints.corkami.com
A simple example
helloworld.pdf
reminder: this is simplified, PDF is actually much more complex
==
binary stream
(text)
(text)
A PDF file is
text-based
white-space tolerant
with binary streams
it can be explored with a decent text editor
if you need one, try Notepad++
http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
Recommended environment
text editor
Sumatra
single-file viewer
updates on the fly
a tool to decompress streams
(explanations later)
check mistakes with qpdf --check or pdfinfo
editing and viewing the changes on the fly
A PDF structure
1. header
signature
2. body
objects
3. cross-reference table
4. trailer
5. xref pointer
6. end of file signature
1. PDF signature
%PDF-1.0 - %PDF-1.7
2. charset identifier
not required
tells tools its not ASCII
4 non-ASCII chars in a
comment
Signature
made of objects
<number> <generation> obj
<content>
endobj
Body
Xref
table
offsets of each object
xref
0 5 5 objects, starting at 0
0000000000 65535 f obj #0: always null
0000000016 00000 n obj #1: offset 16
0000000051 00000 n obj #2: offset 51
0000000111 00000 n
0000000283 00000 n
each line = 20 chars
space before CR
Trailer 1/2
structure
a. trailer
b. object-like content
defines the root object
/Size = #(xref elements)
Trailer 2/2
1. pointer to xref
a. startxref
b. offset to xref
(decimal)
2. End Of File marker
a. %%EOF
Basic types
names, strings, dictionaries...
(string)
<hex>
%comment until line return
some others, less-used types
(PDF is quite f*cked up)
Literals
equivalent files
points
<object> <generation> R
with
the actual contents of the
object
some object CANT be inlined
<generation> is very rarely non-null
Object reference
57

Object reference - example 1

354 0 obj
57
endobj
2 equivalent examples via object reference
Object reference syntax
its odd, but critical to understand
3 0 1 3 elements (3 numbers):
a. 3
b. 0
c. 1
3 0 R 1 element:
a. reference to 3 0
object 3
generation 0
Other PDF syntax rules follow common-sense
reserved keywords
like symbols in Ruby
starts with /
/Pages , /Kids
case sensitive
CamelCase by default
undefined names are ignored
/pages != /Pages
(useful to disable tags)
Name objects
Syntax
[ <values>* ]
Examples:
[3 0 R] = 1 value
a. 3 0 R
[0 0 612 792] = 4 values
a. 0
b. 0
c. 612
d. 792
Array
Syntax:
<< [<name> <value>]* >>
Object 1 sets:
1. /Pages to 2 0 R
Object 2 sets:
1. /Kids to [3 0 R]
2. /Count to 1
3. /Type to /Pages
Dictionaries
/Pages 2 0 R
is equivalent to
/Pages <<
/Kids [3 0 R]
/Count 1
/Type /Pages
>>
and then 3 0 R is replaced too...
Object reference - example 2
Binary streams
parameters, filters...
syntax:
1. usual object declaration
2. parameters dictionary
3. stream
+ return character
4. stream data
5. endstream
+ return character
6. usual endobj
stream data is not interpreted
(at object level)
Streams
object 4
stream parameters
/Filter = /FlateDecode
/Length = 57
stream content (binary)
xsRPw3T044BBH
-_ !0
Example
Binary streams
can be stored with different encodings
/Filter
encodings can be cascaded
content is decoded
after each filter
only the final data matters
Streams dont enforce
encodings
as long as the result is correct
once decoded by the filters
<< /Length 53 >>
stream
BT
/F1 110 Tf
10 400 Td
(Hello World!) Tj
ET
endstream
<< /Filter /FlateDecode
/Length 57 >>
stream
xs
RPw3T044 B BH
-_ !0

endstream
these 2 streams are equivalent,
just using a different encoding
<< /Filter
[/ASCIIHexDecode
/FlateDecode]
/Length 170 >>
stream
78 9C 73 0A E1 52 50 D0 77 33 54 30 34
34 00 B2 42 D2 80 84 A1 81 82 89 81 81
42 48 0A 90 AD E1 91 9A 93 93 AF 10 9E
5F 94 93 A2 A8 A9 10 92 C5 E5 1A C2 05
00 21 30 0B D7
endstream
<< /Filter /FlateDecode
/Length 57 >>
stream
xs
RPw3T044 B BH
-_ !0

endstream
/ASCIIHexDecode will
decode ASCII Hex to binary
Main filters
<none>: direct raw binary in the file
/FlateDecode : ZIPs deflate decompression
smaller
/ASCIIHexDecode: turns hex into binary
41 0A A\n
easy text editing (but binary is very common)
mutool has a specific option for that
Images
/DCTDecode to store JPEG files directly
not just the data, even the header!
JPEG2000, Fax
Encryption
Crypt
RC4 or AES
Other filters
Lets put it all together
how is the file actually parsed?
Parsing 1/7
1. Signature is checked
%PDF-1.1
%
1 0 obj
<< /Pages 2 0 R >>
endobj
2 0 obj
<< /Kids [3 0 R] /Type /Pages /Count 1 >>
endobj
3 0 obj
<< /Parent 2 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 612 792]
/Resources << /Font << /F1 <<
/BaseFont /Arial /Subtype /Type1 /Type /Font>>
>> >> /Contents 4 0 R /Type /Page >>
endobj
4 0 obj
<< /Length 53 >>
stream
BT
/F1 110 Tf
10 400 Td
(Hello World!) Tj
ET
endstream
endobj
xref
0 5
0000000000 65535 f
0000000016 00000 n
0000000051 00000 n
0000000109 00000 n
0000000281 00000 n
trailer << /Root 1 0 R /Size 5 >>
startxref
384
%%EOF
Parsing 2/7
2. %%EOF is located
%PDF-1.1
%
1 0 obj
<< /Pages 2 0 R >>
endobj
2 0 obj
<< /Kids [3 0 R] /Type /Pages /Count 1 >>
endobj
3 0 obj
<< /Parent 2 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 612 792]
/Resources << /Font << /F1 <<
/BaseFont /Arial /Subtype /Type1 /Type /Font>>
>> >> /Contents 4 0 R /Type /Page >>
endobj
4 0 obj
<< /Length 53 >>
stream
BT
/F1 110 Tf
10 400 Td
(Hello World!) Tj
ET
endstream
endobj
xref
0 5
0000000000 65535 f
0000000016 00000 n
0000000051 00000 n
0000000109 00000 n
0000000281 00000 n
trailer << /Root 1 0 R /Size 5 >>
startxref
384
%%EOF
Parsing 3/7
3. xref is located via startxref
%PDF-1.1
%
1 0 obj
<< /Pages 2 0 R >>
endobj
2 0 obj
<< /Kids [3 0 R] /Type /Pages /Count 1 >>
endobj
3 0 obj
<< /Parent 2 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 612 792]
/Resources << /Font << /F1 <<
/BaseFont /Arial /Subtype /Type1 /Type /Font>>
>> >> /Contents 4 0 R /Type /Page >>
endobj
4 0 obj
<< /Length 53 >>
stream
BT
/F1 110 Tf
10 400 Td
(Hello World!) Tj
ET
endstream
endobj
xref
0 5
0000000000 65535 f
0000000016 00000 n
0000000051 00000 n
0000000109 00000 n
0000000281 00000 n
trailer << /Root 1 0 R /Size 5 >>
startxref
384
%%EOF
Parsing 4/7
4. xref gives offsets
of each objects
%PDF-1.1
%
1 0 obj
<< /Pages 2 0 R >>
endobj
2 0 obj
<< /Kids [3 0 R] /Type /Pages /Count 1 >>
endobj
3 0 obj
<< /Parent 2 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 612 792]
/Resources << /Font << /F1 <<
/BaseFont /Arial /Subtype /Type1 /Type /Font>>
>> >> /Contents 4 0 R /Type /Page >>
endobj
4 0 obj
<< /Length 53 >>
stream
BT
/F1 110 Tf
10 400 Td
(Hello World!) Tj
ET
endstream
endobj
xref
0 5
0000000000 65535 f
0000000016 00000 n
0000000051 00000 n
0000000109 00000 n
0000000281 00000 n
trailer << /Root 1 0 R /Size 5 >>
startxref
384
%%EOF
Parsing 5/7
5. trailer is parsed
gives /Root object
%PDF-1.1
%
1 0 obj
<< /Pages 2 0 R >>
endobj
2 0 obj
<< /Kids [3 0 R] /Type /Pages /Count 1 >>
endobj
3 0 obj
<< /Parent 2 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 612 792]
/Resources << /Font << /F1 <<
/BaseFont /Arial /Subtype /Type1 /Type /Font>>
>> >> /Contents 4 0 R /Type /Page >>
endobj
4 0 obj
<< /Length 53 >>
stream
BT
/F1 110 Tf
10 400 Td
(Hello World!) Tj
ET
endstream
endobj
xref
0 5
0000000000 65535 f
0000000016 00000 n
0000000051 00000 n
0000000109 00000 n
0000000281 00000 n
trailer << /Root 1 0 R /Size 5 >>
startxref
384
%%EOF
Parsing 6/7
6. objects are parsed
a. /Root object contains /Pages
b. /Pages contains page array
/Kids
c. each /Page has:
size: /MediaBox
/Contents
as stream object
/Resources
define /Font dictionary
%PDF-1.1
%
1 0 obj
<< /Pages 2 0 R >>
endobj
2 0 obj
<< /Kids [3 0 R] /Type /Pages /Count 1 >>
endobj
3 0 obj
<< /Parent 2 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 612 792]
/Resources << /Font << /F1 <<
/BaseFont /Arial /Subtype /Type1 /Type /Font>>
>> >> /Contents 4 0 R /Type /Page >>
endobj
4 0 obj
<< /Length 53 >>
stream
BT
/F1 110 Tf
10 400 Td
(Hello World!) Tj
ET
endstream
endobj
xref
0 5
0000000000 65535 f
0000000016 00000 n
0000000051 00000 n
0000000109 00000 n
0000000281 00000 n
trailer << /Root 1 0 R /Size 5 >>
startxref
384
%%EOF
7. the page is rendered
a. BT BeginText
b. <name> <size> Tf select font
c. <x> <y> Td move cursor
d. <string> Tj display string
e. ET EndText
Parsing 7/7
%PDF-1.1
%
1 0 obj
<< /Pages 2 0 R >>
endobj
2 0 obj
<< /Kids [3 0 R] /Type /Pages /Count 1 >>
endobj
3 0 obj
<< /Parent 2 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 612 792]
/Resources << /Font << /F1 <<
/BaseFont /Arial /Subtype /Type1 /Type /Font>>
>> >> /Contents 4 0 R /Type /Page >>
endobj
4 0 obj
<< /Length 53 >>
stream
BT
/F1 110 Tf
10 400 Td
(Hello World!) Tj
ET
endstream
endobj
xref
0 5
0000000000 65535 f
0000000016 00000 n
0000000051 00000 n
0000000109 00000 n
0000000281 00000 n
trailer << /Root 1 0 R /Size 5 >>
startxref
384
%%EOF
BT
/F1 110 Tf
10 400 Td
(Hello World!) Tj
ET
In practice
that was the strict minimum
a typical PDF embeds more information
fonts
fonts encoding
metadata

a generated Hello World typically weights >5 Kb
In practice - in the malware world
most readers accept malformed files
many elements missing
EOF, startxref, xref, /Length, endobj, endstream
/MediaBox /Font
each reader has its own weirdness
see my Schizophrens talks and PoCs
so much for the so-called standard
%PDF-\01 0 obj<</Kids
[<</Parent 1 0 R/Contents
[2 0 R]>>]
/Resources<<>>>>2 0
obj<<>>stream\n
BT/F1 105 Tf 0 400 Td
(Hello Adobe!)Tj ET
endstream\n
endobj\n
trailer<</Root<</Pages 1
0 R>>>>
a Hello World for Adobe, in 179 bytes
Conclusion
weve covered the basics of:
file structure
objects relation
file parsing
page rendering
enough to play with PDF internals!
A technical perspective
Part III / III
Wkroczyem do sektora smokw
Isnt copy/paste enough?
why not editing the file itself ?
and restoring the secrets perfectly?
want to hide something?
create your own methods!
Easy PDF editing
1. decompress streams
PDFTk , qpdf
optional: use ASCIIHex to get an ASCII-only file
2. open in text editor
3. view results via Sumatra
overwrite, or comment (dont delete)
no offset to adjust
D:\>pdftk "PDF Secrets.pdf" output uncompressed.pdf uncompress
D:\>qpdf --qdf "PDF Secrets.pdf" uncompressed.pdf
Reminder
technically speaking, a PDF page is:
1. a stream object
2. as the /Contents of a /Type /Page object
3. in the /Kids array of a /Type /Pages object
4. as the value of /Pages in root object
5. as the value of /Root in the trailer
and a text on the page is a simple (string) Tj
Remove a page ?
easy hiding
1. remove reference from /Kids
2. write it back later
locate the /Kids array
Edit out your pages reference
and dont forget to update the pages /Count
(may lead to funny results)
tools such as PDFtk can operate on pages

but:
they dont erase pages!
they extract the other pages
the whole page is lost
but the image contents (as objects) are still left!
and extractable!!
Erasing a page with a tool
D:\>pdftk "PDF Secrets.pdf" cat 1-3 5-end output no4.pdf
Erase overlapping element?
remove paint/text operators from binary stream
Hint:
overlapping elements might be
at the end of the stream,
as they were likely added last
paint operators
(PDF 32000-1:2008, page 135)
text showing operators
(PDF 32000-1:2008, page 250-251)
Example:
manually remove
overlapping elements
take the uncompressed PDF
locate the /Contents stream object
locate the S (Stroke path)
(you can search for \nS\n)
erase the S
no more black border
locate the f (path Filling)
no more gray surface
and the obvious Tj after the string (...)
Note: the letters are different, due to the font mapping
&C, 2O, 1N...
no more hidden elements!
bonus: the operation can be easily automated!
(on all pages, etc)
Page size tricks
a page isnt just a /MediaBox :(
PDF is not so simple!
CropBox/BleedBox/TrimBox/ArtBox/...
What you see is /CropBox
Copy/Paste and (some) pdftotext respect that
what is in Mediabox (but not CropBox)
is not extracted
disable /CropBox to see the full contents
OS-X actually does a /CropBox when you copy/paste out of a PDF,
and you can see the full original content by rotating the page.
Hidden text
White color
1 1 1 rg (fillings color)
text rendering mode
3 Tr = invisible
OCRs use it to store text
A more deniable hiding
altering /Kids or the pages /Contents work,
but there is another elegant solution:
incremental updates
PDF incremental updates
not commonly used
required for signing
but still supported by readers
the concept:
add another set of objects, xref, trailer,
to update the objects hierarchy
Example
a confidential object
with a secret stream object 4
to be hidden
%PDF-1.1
%
1 0 obj
<< /Pages 2 0 R >>
endobj
2 0 obj
<< /Kids [3 0 R] /Type /Pages /Count 1 >>
endobj
3 0 obj
<< /Parent 2 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 612 792]
/Resources << /Font << /F1 <<
/BaseFont /Arial /Subtype /Type1 /Type /Font>>
>> >> /Contents 4 0 R /Type /Page >>
endobj
4 0 obj
<< /Length 50 >>
stream
BT
/F1 120 Tf
10 400 Td
(Top Secret) Tj
ET
endstream
endobj
xref
0 5
0000000000 65535 f
0000000016 00000 n
0000000052 00000 n
0000000110 00000 n
0000000282 00000 n
trailer << /Size 5 /Root 1 0 R >>
startxref
385
%%EOF
New /Contents
append a new object 4
4 0 obj
<< /Length 52 >>
stream
BT
/F1 110 Tf
10 400 Td
(Hello World!) Tj
ET
endstream
endobj
Extra xref
append a new xref
that references it
xref
0 1
0000000000 65535 f
4 1
0000000551 00000 n
Extra trailer 1/2
same /Size & /Root
references the previous xref via /Prev
(not the previous trailer)
trailer <<
/Size 5
/Root 1 0 R
/Prev 385
>>
Extra trailer 2/2
points to the new xref
startxref
654
%%EOF
Result
different content !
restore content by cutting after the first %%EOF
Incremental update to hide page
use the same trick
to override /Type /Pages

%%EOF
1 0 obj
<<
/Type /Pages
/Kids [ 6 0 R 21 0 R]
/Count 2
>>
endobj
xref
0 1
0000000000 65535 f
1 1
0000118783 00000 n
trailer << /Size 41 /Root 4
0 R /Prev 117882 >>
startxref
118849
%%EOF
Actual leaks in the wild ?
in any PDF with /Prev in the trailer:
restore each intermediate version
by truncating after each %%EOF
incremental PDF found in the wild
(removed parts, incorrect page number)
Printed USA
some files produced corrupted text when
copying
(mentioned in the first part)
this is due to fonts:
/Subtype /Type3
with no /ToUnicode mapping
Copy/Paste corruption
Conclusion
Conclusion
the PDF file format is awkward
not too complex if you just want to hide/reveal secrets
be careful when removing sensitive elements!
quite easy to check if elements are still removed or not
overlapping DOESNT work
hiding and recovering elements is easy
content is still there!
Suggestions?
Im interested in:
hiding technics
automated revealing technics
documents that are a pain to rebuild
split fonts in small paths ?
licensed fonts are converted to glyphs
no more text
ACK
@pdfkungfoo
@Daeinar @veorq @_Quack1 @MunrekFR
@dominicgs @mwgamera @kevinallix @munin
@kristamonster @ClaudioAlbertin @push_pnx
@JHeguia @doegox @gynvael @nst021
@iamreddave
@angealbertini
corkami.com
Hail to the king, baby!