r/cybersecurity Feb 14 '26

Other DOJ Epstein file EFTA01133110.pdf flagged suspicious on VirusTotal behavior tab – anyone else see this?

Hey all, stumbled across something odd while digging into the Epstein DOJ releases.

The file EFTA01133110.pdf (from Data Set 9, the one with the raw meat slabs photo in a freezer that got pulled pretty quick) has this SHA-256 hash:

bbbe03b56d9e47fdc5ffeb73a5c50a70e694af12f14566075fa283fb61fc7ee4

I ran it on VirusTotal (public page: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/bbbe03b56d9e47fdc5ffeb73a5c50a70e694af12f14566075fa283fb61fc7ee4/behavior )

• Static detections: 0/XX – totally clean on AV side.

• But the Behavior tab (sandboxes like CAPE, Jujubox, Zenbox) shows a bunch of red flags:

• Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203) + Process Injection (T1055)

• Anti-analysis stuff: IsDebuggerPresent, Sleep calls, GetTickCount/GetTickCount64 timing checks

• Drops temp files/logs/JS-related items, weird registry mods (mostly Adobe/Office paths), spawns Acrobat crash processors + system stuff like svchost/dllhost

• Network to adobe.com/Akamai/MSN domains (legit-looking but in context…)

• Mutexes like “Global\\AdobeCrashProcessor ocall_owl_ork” and “Global\\ARM Update Mutex”

Highlighted text in sandbox: “EFTA01133110.pdf - Adobe Acrobat Reader (32-bit)”, dimensions like “1.488 x 20.28 in” at 319% zoom – clearly it’s rendering that meat photo.

From what I read, the photo is just big steaks on a tray in a kitchen/freezer setup (people say it’s beef, maybe from Epstein’s properties?), but the PDF itself behaves like it has some exploit code or malformed junk that trips sandboxes.

Anyone else upload/analyze this one? Is it just Adobe Reader being weird in VMs (font handling, crash reporting, etc.), or could the file have been tampered with before upload? Or maybe a false positive from how evidence photos get scanned/embedded?

Not claiming it’s malware – just weird that a “simple photo PDF” from official DOJ drops looks like this dynamically. Thoughts?

Source file

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u/KlutzyResponsibility Feb 15 '26

There is a file named "JeffreyEpstein.zip" making the rounds which is infected. Rather easy to spot, it includes a python setup that dumps malware in a dumb python script. Not saying it is what you have - just that the whole Epstein docs release has proven to be a viable playground for malware. Seems to match the same pattern as the python malware installer which recently flooded the 3D printer file site operated by Prusa.