diff --git a/PyPDF2/pdf.py b/PyPDF2/pdf.py
index 02804fba1..6deda0ed1 100644
--- a/PyPDF2/pdf.py
+++ b/PyPDF2/pdf.py
@@ -958,6 +958,9 @@ def read(self, stream):
         if debug: print ">>read", stream
         # start at the end:
         stream.seek(-1, 2)
+        if not stream.tell():
+            raise utils.PdfReadError, "File is empty"
+
         line = b_('')
         if debug: print "  line:",line
         while not line: