Suspicious Remote Script Downloaded via curl and Piped to Shell (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Execution → C2

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
- T1059.004Unix Shell
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
- T1105Ingress Tool Transfer
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a curl download piped directly into a shell in a single command line, the download-and-execute pattern used by the updated XCSSET malware to retrieve and run stage payloads from attacker infrastructure. Adversaries chain curl into sh to fetch and execute code without writing a script to disk, so this one-liner is a strong indicator of remote payload execution on macOS.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious Remote Script Downloaded via curl and Piped to Shell (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1059.004 · 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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