Malicious Remote Script Piped to a Shell on macOS (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Execution

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1059.002AppleScript
- T1204.004Malicious Copy and Paste
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a macOS command line that downloads remote content with curl and pipes it straight into a shell or osascript, the paste-and-run delivery behavior behind macOS stealers such as Atomic and Odyssey that trick users into running a one-liner in Terminal. macOS paste-and-run stealer campaigns are called out in the Red Canary Threat Detection Report. Detecting the download-and-execute pipe surfaces infostealer installation at the execution stage.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1204.004 — drag to rearrange

Malicious Data Exfiltration via curl with Stealer Specific BuildID Header

Suspicious osascript Password Prompt via AppleScript Display Dialog (via process_creation)

Suspicious ClickFix RunMRU Entry Recording LOLBIN Command from Run Dialog

Suspicious RunMRU Entry Launching LOLBIN via ClickFix Run Dialog

Malicious Sapphire Sleet curl to osascript Chain With mac-cur User-Agent (via process_creation)

Suspicious macOS ClickFix Execution Piping curl to zsh via UNC1069

Suspicious msdt Execution of Audio Diagnostic via UNC1069 ClickFix

Suspicious ClickFix Clipboard PowerShell Execution from Run Dialog

Suspicious osascript Spawning Shell Interpreter on macOS

Malicious Remote Script Piped to a Shell on macOS (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1204.004 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.

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