Suspicious macOS SSH Loopback Connection for TCC Bypass

ATT&CK techniques

Lateral Movement

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
- T1021.004SSH
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects an SSH client connecting to the local loopback address on macOS. It maps to a technique where an attacker uses ssh to localhost so the spawned session inherits full disk access granted to the SSH daemon, bypassing the TCC privacy prompt. Detecting loopback SSH can surface abuse of remote services for privacy control evasion.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1021.004 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious macOS SSH Loopback Connection for TCC Bypass

Pivot detection · T1021.004 · 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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