Sigma rule: Suspicious Microsoft Office Child Process - MacOS

Rule

Title

Suspicious Microsoft Office Child Process - MacOS

Status

test

Level

high

Author

Sohan G (D4rkCiph3r)

Date

2023-01-31

Modified

2023-02-04

File

rules/macos/process_creation/proc_creation_macos_office_susp_child_processes.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects suspicious child processes spawning from microsoft office suite applications such as word or excel. This could indicates malicious macro execution

Log source

product

macos

category

process_creation

Detection

selection:
    ParentImage|contains:
        - 'Microsoft Word'
        - 'Microsoft Excel'
        - 'Microsoft PowerPoint'
        - 'Microsoft OneNote'
    Image|endswith:
        - '/bash'
        - '/curl'
        - '/dash'
        - '/fish'
        - '/osacompile'
        - '/osascript'
        - '/sh'
        - '/zsh'
        - '/python'
        - '/python3'
        - '/wget'
condition: selection

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Unknown

Tags

• attack.execution
• attack.persistence
• attack.t1059.002
• attack.t1137.002
• attack.t1204.002

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

• T1059.002
• T1137.002
• T1204.002

References

• https://redcanary.com/blog/applescript/
• https://objective-see.org/blog/blog_0x4B.html

Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/macos/process_creation/proc_creation_macos_office_susp_child_processes.yml