Suspicious System Profiler Hardware Enumeration (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion → Discovery

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1497.001System Checks
Cred Access
Discovery
- T1082System Information Discovery
- T1497.001System Checks
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects system_profiler querying SPHardwareDataType which the Cosmic Leopard macOS implant uses to fingerprint the host and detect virtual or analysis environments. Hardware enumeration is an early discovery step that informs targeting and sandbox evasion decisions.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1082 — drag to rearrange

MacOS Sysctl Usage for System Discovery (hw., kern., machdep.)

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Suspicious Host Recon via ConvertFrom-Csv and ConvertTo-Json

Suspicious Java Process Spawning Reconnaissance Commands via Cleo MFT (via process_creation)

Suspicious Reconnaissance Commands Spawned by Samsung MagicINFO Server

Suspicious macOS Download History Query via sqlite3

Suspicious System Profiler Hardware Enumeration (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1082 · 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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