python-oletools

oletools is a package of python tools to analyze Microsoft OLE2 files (also called Structured Storage, Compound File Binary Format or Compound Document File Format), such as Microsoft Office 97-2003 documents, MSI files or Outlook messages, mainly for malware analysis, forensics and debugging. It is based on the olefile parser.

It also provides tools to analyze RTF files and files based on the OpenXML format (aka OOXML) such as MS Office 2007+ documents, XPS or MSIX files.

For example, oletools can detect, extract and analyse VBA macros, OLE objects, Excel 4 macros (XLM) and DDE links.

See http://www.decalage.info/python/oletools for more info.

Quick links: Home page - Download/Install - Documentation - Report Issues/Suggestions/Questions - Contact the Author - Repository - Updates on Twitter Cheatsheet

Note: python-oletools is not related to OLETools published by BeCubed Software.

News

• 2025-05-22 v0.60.3:
  • olevba:
    • fixed a security issue in the CLI display when ANSI escape codes are present (PR #873)
    • encrypted files: password is now reported in the logs, added --decrypted_dir option (PR #842)
• 2024-07-02 v0.60.2:
  • olevba:
    • fixed a bug in open_slk (issue #797, PR #769)
    • fixed a bug due to new PROJECTCOMPATVERSION record in dir stream (PR #723, issues #700, #701, #725, #791, #808, #811, #833)
  • oleobj: fixed SyntaxError with Python 3.12 (PR #855), SyntaxWarning (PR #774)
  • rtfobj: fixed SyntaxError with Python 3.12 (PR #854)
  • clsid: added CLSIDs for MSI, Zed
  • ftguess: added MSI, PNG and OneNote formats
  • pyxswf: fixed python 3.12 compatibility (PR #841, issue #813)
  • setup/requirements: allow pyparsing 3 to solve install issues (PR #812, issue #762)
• 2022-05-09 v0.60.1:
  • olevba:
    • fixed a bug when calling XLMMacroDeobfuscator (PR #737)
    • removed keyword "sample" causing false positives
  • oleid: fixed OleID init issue (issue #695, PR #696)
  • oleobj:
    • added simple detection of CVE-2021-40444 initial stage
    • added detection for customUI onLoad
    • improved handling of incorrect filenames in OLE package (PR #451)
  • rtfobj: fixed code to find URLs in OLE2Link objects for Py3 (issue #692)
  • ftguess:
    • added PowerPoint and XPS formats (PR #716)
    • fixed issue with XPS and malformed documents (issue #711)
    • added XLSB format (issue #758)
  • improved logging with common module log_helper (PR #449)
• 2021-06-02 v0.60:
  • ftguess: new tool to identify file formats and containers (issue #680)
  • oleid: (issue #679)
    • each indicator now has a risk level
    • calls ftguess to identify file formats
    • calls olevba+mraptor to detect and analyse VBA+XLM macros
  • olevba:
    • when XLMMacroDeobfuscator is available, use it to extract and deobfuscate XLM macros
  • rtfobj:
    • use ftguess to identify file type of OLE Package (issue #682)
    • fixed bug in re_executable_extensions
  • crypto: added PowerPoint transparent password '/01Hannes Ruescher/01' (issue #627)
  • setup: XLMMacroDeobfuscator, xlrd2 and pyxlsb2 added as optional dependencies

See the full changelog for more information.

Tools:

Tools to analyze malicious documents

• oleid: to analyze OLE files to detect specific characteristics usually found in malicious files.
• olevba: to extract and analyze VBA Macro source code from MS Office documents (OLE and OpenXML).
• MacroRaptor: to detect malicious VBA Macros
• msodde: to detect and extract DDE/DDEAUTO links from MS Office documents, RTF and CSV
• pyxswf: to detect, extract and analyze Flash objects (SWF) that may be embedded in files such as MS Office documents (e.g. Word, Excel) and RTF, which is especially useful for malware analysis.
• oleobj: to extract embedded objects from OLE files.
• rtfobj: to extract embedded objects from RTF files.

Tools to analyze the structure of OLE files

• olebrowse: A simple GUI to browse OLE files (e.g. MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint documents), to view and extract individual data streams.
• olemeta: to extract all standard properties (metadata) from OLE files.
• oletimes: to extract creation and modification timestamps of all streams and storages.
• oledir: to display all the directory entries of an OLE file, including free and orphaned entries.
• olemap: to display a map of all the sectors in an OLE file.

Projects using oletools:

oletools are used by a number of projects and online malware analysis services, including ACE, ADAPT, Anlyz.io, AssemblyLine, Binary Refinery, CAPE, CinCan, Cortex XSOAR (Palo Alto), Cuckoo Sandbox, DARKSURGEON, Deepviz, DIARIO, dridex.malwareconfig.com, EML Analyzer, EXPMON, FAME, FLARE-VM, GLIMPS Malware, Hybrid-analysis.com, InQuest Labs, IntelOwl, Joe Sandbox, Laika BOSS, MacroMilter, mailcow, malshare.io, malware-repo, Malware Repository Framework (MRF), MalwareBazaar, olefy, Pandora, PeekabooAV, pcodedmp, PyCIRCLean, QFlow, Qu1cksc0pe, Tylabs QuickSand, REMnux, Snake, SNDBOX, Splunk add-on for MS O365 Email, SpuriousEmu, Strelka, stoQ, Sublime Platform/MQL, Subparse, TheHive/Cortex, ThreatBoook, TSUGURI Linux, Vba2Graph, Viper, ViperMonkey, YOMI, and probably VirusTotal, FileScan.IO. And quite a few other projects on GitHub. (Please contact me if you have or know a project using oletools)

Download and Install:

The recommended way to download and install/update the latest stable release of oletools is to use pip:

• On Linux/Mac: sudo -H pip install -U oletools[full]
• On Windows: pip install -U oletools[full]

This should automatically create command-line scripts to run each tool from any directory: olevba, mraptor, rtfobj, etc.

The keyword [full] means that all optional dependencies will be installed, such as XLMMacroDeobfuscator. If you prefer a lighter version without optional dependencies, just remove `[f