Suspicious WindowServer Binary Masquerade in Application Support (via file_event)

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
macos
Category
file_event
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-05-03
Updated
2026-08-28

ATT&CK techniques

C2
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Discovery

  10. Lateral Movement

  11. Collection

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects creation of a file named WindowServer under ~/Library/Application Support/ on macOS. The Trojan-Proxy drops its main executable using the name of a legitimate system service in this user directory to blend in, so a WindowServer binary written to Application Support rather than the OS location indicates masquerading malware.

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Suspicious WindowServer Binary Masquerade in Application Support (via file_event)
Pivot detection · T1090 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.