malware

XAgentOSX S0161

Type: malware
Platform: macOS
Created: 14 December 2017
Last modified: 25 April 2025

XAgentOSX is a trojan that has been used by APT28 on OS X and appears to be a port of their standard CHOPSTICK or XAgent trojan. [1]

Techniques47th pct

Tactics53rd pct

Threat groupunranked

CampaignsNone recorded

Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.

Standing S0161

Reach is how much of ATT&CK this malware touches. Coverage is how well defended each thing it does is, as a median per technique rather than a total — a total would just restate the reach. Each figure is ranked against all 825 ATT&CK software entries only where that population actually spreads. Where most of the population shares one value, a percentile would rank the tie instead of the entity, so the raw value is shown and no rank is claimed.

Select	Description	Category	Status	Event	OS	Product	MITRE ATT&CK	CVEs	Severity	Author	Created	Updated	ID	Refs
	Detects file access requests to browser credential stores by uncommon processes. (...)	Hunting	test	file_event	windows	WinEventLog Security	Credential Access Credentials from Password Stores Credentials from Web Browsers	-	low	Daniel Koifman (@Koifsec), Nasreddine Bencherchali	2024-10-21	—	4b60e527-ec73-4b47-8cb3-f02ad927ca65
	Adversaries may acquire credentials from web browsers by reading files specific to the target browser. (...)	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Credential Access Credentials from Password Stores Credentials from Web Browsers	-	medium	frack113	2022-01-30	—	fc028194-969d-4122-8abe-0470d5b8f12f
	Detects the deletion of the "Zone.Identifier" ADS. (...)	Hunting	test	file_delete	windows	Sysmon	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	low	frack113	2023-09-04	—	7eac0a16-5832-4e81-865f-0268a6d19e4b
	Detects the deletion of the "Zone.Identifier" ADS by an uncommon process. (...)	Generic	test	file_delete	windows	Sysmon	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-09-04	2025-07-04	3109530e-ab47-4cc6-a953-cac5ebcc93ae
	Detects automated lateral movement by Turla group	Unsupported	unsupported	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Discovery File and Directory Discovery Discovery Network Share Discovery Lateral Movement Remote Services SMB/Windows Admin Shares	-	medium	Markus Neis	2017-11-07	2023-02-24	75925535-ca97-4e0a-a850-00b5c00779dc
	Detects backup catalog deletions	Generic	test	-	windows	WinEventLog Application	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Tom U. @c_APT_ure (collection)	2017-05-12	2022-12-25	9703792d-fd9a-456d-a672-ff92efe4806a
	Detects user data export activity.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Bitbucket Audit · Bitbucket	Collection Data from Information Repositories Reconnaissance Gather Victim Org Information Identify Roles Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Muhammad Faisal (@faisalusuf)	2024-02-25	—	5259cbf2-0a75-48bf-b57a-c54d6fabaef3
	Detects user permission data export attempt.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Bitbucket Audit · Bitbucket	Collection Data from Information Repositories Reconnaissance Gather Victim Org Information Identify Roles Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Muhammad Faisal (@faisalusuf)	2024-02-25	—	87cc6698-3e07-4ba2-9b43-a85a73e151e2
	detects BPFDoor .lock and .pid files access in temporary file storage facility	Generic	test	file_event	linux	Linux Auditd	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Execution Native API	-	high	Rafal Piasecki	2022-08-10	2026-03-30	808146b2-9332-4d78-9416-d7e47012d83d
	Detects usage of "getcap" binary. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Discovery File and Directory Discovery	-	low	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-12-28	2026-01-24	d8d97d51-122d-4cdd-9e2f-01b4b4933530
Splunk	The following analytic identifies the execution of the "whoami" command with the "/group" flag, where the results are passed to the "find" command in order to look for a the string "12288". (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2021-09-14	2026-05-13	a9079b18-1633-11ec-859c-acde48001122	-
	Detects patterns found in process executions cause by China Chopper like tiny (ASPX) webshells	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery Account Discovery Discovery Remote System Discovery Persistence Server Software Component Web Shell Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	CVE-2022-41040 CVE-2022-41082	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), MSTI (query)	2022-10-01	—	fa3c117a-bc0d-416e-a31b-0c0e80653efb
Splunk	This analytic detects potential reconnaissance activities on Cisco ASA devices by identifying execution of multiple information-gathering "show" commands within a short timeframe. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Reconnaissance Gather Victim Network Information Domain Properties IP Addresses Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-11-21	2026-05-13	6e9d4f7a-3c8b-4a9e-8d2f-7b5c9e1a6f3d
	Find information about network devices that is not stored in config files	Generic	test	authentication	-	Cisco AAA · Cisco	Discovery File and Directory Discovery Discovery Password Policy Discovery Discovery Process Discovery Discovery Remote System Discovery Discovery System Information Discovery Discovery System Network Configuration Discovery Discovery System Network Connections Discovery Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Time Discovery	-	low	Austin Clark	2019-08-12	2023-01-04	9705a6a1-6db6-4a16-a987-15b7151e299b
	See what files are being deleted from flash file systems	Generic	test	authentication	-	Cisco AAA · Cisco	Impact Disk Wipe Disk Content Wipe Disk Structure Wipe Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Austin Clark	2019-08-12	2023-01-04	71d65515-c436-43c0-841b-236b1f32c21e	-
Splunk	This analytic detects bursts of Cisco IOS or NX-OS discovery commands associated with Salt Typhoon tradecraft. (...)	Anomaly	stable	network_device	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Reconnaissance Gather Victim Network Information Discovery System Information Discovery Discovery System Network Configuration Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali	2026-05-19	2026-05-20	71ac5328-2364-40cf-8381-92b8dc531399
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of `cipher.exe` with the `/w` flag to clear unallocated sectors on a disk. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2021-06-10	2026-05-13	cd80a6ac-c9d9-11eb-8839-acde48001122
	Detects the use of the redirection character ">" to redirect information on the command line. (...)	Hunting	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery System Information Discovery	-	low	frack113	2022-01-22	2024-03-19	4f4eaa9f-5ad4-410c-a4be-bc6132b0175a
	Detects usage of the Get-ADComputer cmdlet to collect computer information and output it to a file	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-11-10	2022-11-17	435e10e4-992a-4281-96f3-38b11106adde
	Detects usage of the Get-ADComputer cmdlet to collect computer information and output it to a file	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-11-17	—	db885529-903f-4c5d-9864-28fe199e6370
	Detects potential container discovery via listing of certain kernel features in the "/proc" virtual (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Discovery System Information Discovery	-	low	Seth Hanford	2023-08-23	—	746c86fb-ccda-4816-8997-01386263acc4
Splunk	The following analytic identifies specific GET or HEAD requests to web servers that indicate reconnaissance attempts to find vulnerable JBoss servers. (...)	Generic	experimental	webserver	-	-	Initial Access, Persistence External Remote Services Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Splunk	2020-04-29	2026-05-13	104658f4-afdc-499e-9719-17243f982681	-
Splunk	The following analytic detects outbound SMB (Server Message Block) connections from internal hosts to external servers. (...)	Generic	stable	network_connection	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol File Transfer Protocols	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Stuart Hopkins, Patrick Bareiss	2020-04-29	2026-05-13	1bed7774-304a-4e8f-9d72-d80e45ff492b	-
	Detects execution of the builtin "rmdir" command in order to delete directories. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	low	frack113	2022-01-15	2023-03-07	41ca393d-538c-408a-ac27-cf1e038be80c
	Detect the usage of "DirLister.exe" a utility for quickly listing folder or drive contents. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery File and Directory Discovery	-	low	frack113	2022-08-20	2023-02-04	b4dc61f5-6cce-468e-a608-b48b469feaa2
	Detects listing or file reading of ".dockerenv" which can be a sing of potential container discovery	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Discovery System Information Discovery	-	low	Seth Hanford	2023-08-23	—	11701de9-d5a5-44aa-8238-84252f131895
	Domain user and group enumeration via network reconnaissance. (...)	Unsupported	unsupported	-	-	DCE/RPC · Zeek	Discovery Account Discovery Domain Account Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Nate Guagenti (@neu5ron), Open Threat Research (OTR)	2020-05-03	2023-03-24	66a0bdc6-ee04-441a-9125-99d2eb547942
	Detects the execution of "whoami.exe" with the "/all" flag	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-12-04	2024-03-05	c248c896-e412-4279-8c15-1c558067b6fa
	Detects execution of the "esxcli" command with the "network" flag in order to retrieve information about the network configuration.	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Hypervisor CLI Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	medium	Cedric Maurugeon	2023-09-04	—	33e814e0-1f00-4e43-9c34-31fb7ae2b174
	Detects execution of the "esxcli" command with the "storage" flag in order to retrieve information about the storage status and other related information. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Hypervisor CLI Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems), Cedric Maurugeon	2023-09-04	—	f41dada5-3f56-4232-8503-3fb7f9cf2d60
Splunk	This detection identifies the use of ESXCLI system-level commands that retrieve configuration details. (...)	Generic	stable	-	esxi	VMware ESXi · VMware	Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Raven Tait, Splunk	2025-07-11	2026-05-13	b4d4217a-6673-4fb6-837d-07a522bdf9f7	-
	Detects execution of the "esxcli" command with the "system" flag in order to retrieve information about the different component of the system. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Hypervisor CLI Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	medium	Cedric Maurugeon	2023-09-04	—	e80273e1-9faf-40bc-bd85-dbaff104c4e9
	Detects execution of the "esxcli" command with the "vm" flag in order to retrieve information about the installed VMs.	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Hypervisor CLI Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	medium	Cedric Maurugeon	2023-09-04	—	5f1573a7-363b-4114-9208-ad7a61de46eb
	Detects execution of the "esxcli" command with the "vsan" flag in order to retrieve information about virtual storage. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Hypervisor CLI Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems), Cedric Maurugeon	2023-09-04	—	d54c2f06-aca9-4e2b-81c9-5317858f4b79
	Detects usage of system utilities such as "find", "tree", "findmnt", etc, to discover files, directories and network shares.	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Discovery File and Directory Discovery	-	informational	Daniil Yugoslavskiy, oscd.community, CheraghiMilad	2020-10-19	2024-12-01	d3feb4ee-ff1d-4d3d-bd10-5b28a238cc72
	Detects usage of system utilities to discover files and directories	Generic	test	process_creation	macos	-	Discovery File and Directory Discovery	-	informational	Daniil Yugoslavskiy, oscd.community	2020-10-19	2022-11-25	089dbdf6-b960-4bcc-90e3-ffc3480c20f6
	Detects the deletion of files by the Sysinternals SDelete utility. (...)	Generic	test	file_delete	windows	Sysmon	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez (Cyb3rWard0g), OTR (Open Threat Research)	2020-05-02	2023-02-15	6ddab845-b1b8-49c2-bbf7-1a11967f64bc
	Detects file deletion using "rm", "shred" or "unlink" commands which are used often by adversaries t (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	informational	Ömer Günal, oscd.community	2020-10-07	2022-09-15	30aed7b6-d2c1-4eaf-9382-b6bc43e50c57
	Detects execution of the builtin "del"/"erase" commands in order to delete files. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	low	frack113	2022-01-15	2024-03-05	379fa130-190e-4c3f-b7bc-6c8e834485f3
	Detects AS-REP roasting is an attack that is often-overlooked. (...)	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	frack113	2022-03-17	—	96c982fe-3d08-4df4-bed2-eb14e02f21c8
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of `powershell.exe` with command-line arguments invoking the `GetCurrent` method of the WindowsIdentity .NET class. (...)	Hunting	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Mauricio Velazco, Splunk	2021-08-24	2026-10-02	7eb9c3d5-c98c-4088-acc5-8240bad15379
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of the `GetCurrent` method from the WindowsIdentity .NET class using PowerShell Script Block Logging (EventCode=4104). (...)	Hunting	stable	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Mauricio Velazco, Splunk	2021-08-24	2026-10-02	80879283-c30f-44f7-8471-d1381f6d437a
	Detects execution of the "del" builtin command to remove files using greedy/wildcard expression. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	frack113 , X__Junior (Nextron Systems)	2021-12-02	2023-09-11	204b17ae-4007-471b-917b-b917b315c5db
	Detects the execution of whoami.exe with the /group command line flag to show group membership for the current user, account type, security identifiers (SID), and attributes.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-02-28	—	bd8b828d-0dca-48e1-8a63-8a58ecf2644f
	Detects a typical pattern of a CobaltStrike BOF which inject into other processes	Generic	test	process_access	windows	Sysmon	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools Execution Native API	-	high	Christian Burkard (Nextron Systems)	2021-08-04	2023-11-28	09706624-b7f6-455d-9d02-adee024cee1d
	Detects HandleKatz opening LSASS to duplicate its handle to later dump the memory without opening an (...)	Generic	test	process_access	windows	Sysmon	Execution Native API Credential Access OS Credential Dumping LSASS Memory	-	high	Bhabesh Raj (rule), @thefLinkk	2022-06-27	2023-11-28	b1bd3a59-c1fd-4860-9f40-4dd161a7d1f5
	Detects suspicious use of PCHunter, a tool like Process Hacker to view and manipulate processes, ker (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery File and Directory Discovery Discovery Process Discovery Discovery Query Registry Discovery System Information Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Nasreddine Bencherchali	2022-10-10	2024-11-23	fca949cc-79ca-446e-8064-01aa7e52ece5
	Detects actions caused by the RedMimicry Winnti playbook a automated breach emulations utility	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Windows Command Shell Execution Native API Stealth System Binary Proxy Execution Rundll32	-	high	Alexander Rausch	2020-06-24	2023-03-01	95022b85-ff2a-49fa-939a-d7b8f56eeb9b
	Detects SharpLdapWhoami, a whoami alternative that queries the LDAP service on a domain controller	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-08-29	2023-02-04	d9367cbb-c2e0-47ce-bdc0-128cb6da898d
	Adversaries may look for details about the network configuration and settings of systems they access (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery Domain Trust Discovery Discovery Network Share Discovery Discovery Permission Groups Discovery Domain Groups Discovery System Network Connections Discovery Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	high	frack113	2021-12-10	2023-02-14	b2317cfa-4a47-4ead-b3ff-297438c0bc2d

Title

Description

XAgentOSX S0161

XAgentOSX MITRE reference S0161

Standing S0161

Reach

Coverage

XAgentOSX detections S0161