Evil Clippy

Did you know that there is a tool called https://github.com/outflanknl/EvilClippy? Me neither. Per the link,

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A cross-platform assistant for creating malicious MS Office documents. Can hide VBA macros, stomp VBA code (via P-Code) and confuse macro analysis tools. Runs on Linux, OSX and Windows.

If you're new to this tool, you might want to start by reading our blog post on Evil Clippy: https://outflank.nl/blog/2019/05/05/evil-clippy-ms-office-maldoc-assistant/

This project should be used for authorized testing or educational purposes only.

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Why would I be looking at this page? Because I have macros in my templates that I cannot edit. When I select the macro, the Edit button is disabled. Thus, I was looking for a solution and when I came upon this page - VBA-Project Locked - Project is Unviewable - I was initially happy. It led me to the GitHub page and that's where my happiness evaporated because I read the following:

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Compilation

We do not provide a binary release for EvilClippy. Please compile executables yourself:

OSX and Linux

Make sure you have Mono installed. Then execute the following command from the command line:

mcs /reference:OpenMcdf.dll,System.IO.Compression.FileSystem.dll /out:EvilClippy.exe *.cs

Now run Evil Clippy from the command line:

mono EvilClippy.exe -h

Windows

Make sure you have Visual Studio installed. Then execute the following command from a Visual Studio developer command prompt:

csc /reference:OpenMcdf.dll,System.IO.Compression.FileSystem.dll /out:EvilClippy.exe *.cs

Now run Evil Clippy from the command line:

EvilClippy.exe -h

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I have never compiled a program - EVER! It's not that I don't want to learn how to compile a program - it's that I have managed to find a simple issue I want to fix - being able to edit a macro that I created - that has a complex answer. Sigh. I'm an English major and sometimes just saying that feels like an excuse. After all, I truly do not have the technical expertise of a developer. I think Alex has more logic and reasoning skills than I do - and I'm the adult in the room! I think that because he has taken coding classes at UNI whereas I never have taken a formal coding class. Sometimes I think I'd like to do so - and to that end, I've looked at what classes are available to me on the LinkedIn training site. Perhaps I will learn how to compile a program.