analyzing-macro-malware-in-office-documents

1# Analyzing Macro Malware in Office Documents
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3## When to Use
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5- A suspicious Office document (.doc, .docm, .xls, .xlsm, .ppt) has been flagged by email security
6- Investigating phishing campaigns that deliver weaponized Office documents
7- Extracting VBA macro code to identify the payload download URL and execution method
8- Analyzing obfuscated VBA code to understand the full attack chain
9- Determining if a document uses DDE, ActiveX, or remote template injection instead of macros
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11**Do not use** for analyzing non-macro Office threats (DDE, remote template injection); while this skill covers detection of these, specialized analysis may be needed.
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13## Prerequisites
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15- Python 3.8+ with oletools installed (`pip install oletools`)
16- oledump.py from Didier Stevens (https://blog.didierstevens.com/programs/oledump-py/)
17- Isolated analysis VM without Microsoft Office installed (prevents accidental execution)
18- XLMDeobfuscator for Excel 4.0 macro analysis (pip install xlmdeobfuscator)
19- LibreOffice for safe document rendering (does not execute VBA macros by default)
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21## Workflow
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23### Step 1: Initial Document Triage
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25Determine if the document contains macros or other active content:
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27```bash
28# Quick triage with olevba
29olevba suspect.docm
30 
31# Check for OLE streams and macros
32oleid suspect.docm
33 
34# Output indicators:
35# VBA Macros:        True/False
36# XLM Macros:        True/False
37# External Relationships: True/False (remote template)
38# ObjectPool:        True/False (embedded objects)
39…