Suspicious Credential Prompt Phishing via osascript (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → Cred Access

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1059.002AppleScript
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
- T1555Credentials from Password Stores
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects osascript invoking an AppleScript dialog box that prompts the user for a password, a technique used by macOS stealers such as Cthulhu and Atomic to socially engineer credentials. Attackers use fake authentication dialogs to capture the local account password for privilege escalation and keychain access.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1059.002 — drag to rearrange

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

Suspicious osascript Spawning Shell Interpreter on macOS

Suspicious osascript Spawning Shell curl to External Host on macOS (via process_creation)

Suspicious macOS Credential Validation via dscl authonly

Suspicious Credential Prompt Phishing via osascript (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1059.002 · 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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