Suspicious osascript Spawning Shell Interpreter on macOS

ATT&CK techniques

Execution

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

What it detects

This rule detects osascript spawning a shell such as zsh or bash with an inline command, a chain used by the BlueNoroff GhostCall and GhostHire campaigns to bridge AppleScript into shell execution. Attackers use osascript to run AppleScript that then invokes /bin/zsh -c to execute follow-on commands and download stages. This AppleScript-to-shell handoff is a common macOS execution technique for staging payloads.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1059.002 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious AMOS Stealer Fake Password Prompt via osascript (via process_creation)

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

Malicious Fake Zoom AppleScript Execution via Osascript

Suspicious osascript Fake Password Prompt by ClickLock macOS Stealer (via process_creation)

Malicious AppleScript Execution of curl-Fetched Shell Payload via osascript (via process_creation)

Suspicious osascript Spawning Shell Executing Hidden macOS Payload via Axios Compromise

Suspicious Osascript Requesting Administrator Privileges (via process_creation)

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

AppleScript do-shell-script Abuse via Osascript (via process_creation)

Suspicious osascript Spawning Shell Interpreter on macOS

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.

Full detection rule

Unlock this rule to view and copy it

The detection logic is included with a plan. Everything else — context, mappings and implementation details — stays free on this page.

Sign in for 3 free unlocks

Signing in gives you 3 unlocks to spend on any rule in the library. No card, and they do not expire.

Also included

Unlocked rules convert on this page — to Splunk SPL or Splunk — Raw Index SPL or Microsoft Sentinel KQL or Microsoft Sentinel ASIM ASIM KQL or Microsoft Defender XDR KQL or Elastic Security KQL or Elastic Security Lucene or Elastic Security ES|QL or CrowdStrike Falcon CQL or SentinelOne PowerQuery or Palo Alto Cortex XDR XQL or Carbon Black Cloud Platform Search or Carbon Black EDR Process Search or Google Security Operations UDM Search or IBM QRadar AQL or Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Rules expression or Rapid7 InsightIDR LEQL or Graylog Search or OpenSearch Lucene or OpenSearch PPL PPL or Grafana Loki LogQL or SQLite SQL or Zircolite SQLite — with the log-source profile the engine picked, the field map it used, and everything it could not express. Converting a rule you have unlocked costs no further credit.

See it run on a free rule →Convert your own rule →