Suspicious Zsh Persistence via zshrc_aliases Appended to Shell Startup (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1546Event Triggered Execution
Priv Esc
- T1546Event Triggered Execution
Defense Evasion
- T1647Plist File Modification
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects references to a .zshrc_aliases file, the shell-profile persistence artifact that the updated XCSSET malware writes and sources from the user .zshrc to relaunch itself on each new terminal session. Adversaries hide persistence inside auxiliary zsh startup files to avoid altering the more commonly monitored .zshrc directly, so activity touching .zshrc_aliases is an indicator of shell-based persistence.

Reporting behind it

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Suspicious Zsh Persistence via zshrc_aliases Appended to Shell Startup (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1647 · 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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