AN1014: Analytic 1014
Adversary tool/script issuing mass SYN/ACK floods that degrade OS responsiveness and interrupt service response on macOS endpoints.
Analyst context for executives and security teams
This analytic concerns a macOS endpoint being used to issue mass SYN/ACK flood traffic, degrading responsiveness and disrupting service response. For leaders, the practical issue is not just malware detection; it is whether endpoint, network, and incident response teams can recognize when a workstation or server is contributing to denial-of-service-like activity before it affects business operations or creates downstream response confusion.
Executive priority
Prioritize validation where macOS systems support critical workflows, customer-facing services, developer infrastructure, or sensitive operational environments. This behavior can affect business continuity and incident triage because a compromised or misused endpoint may appear as both a performance problem and a network-abuse source. Executives should ask whether SOC and infrastructure teams have enough endpoint and network evidence to distinguish normal high-volume traffic from flood behavior, and whether response playbooks define containment decisions for macOS hosts generating disruptive traffic.
Technical view
ATT&CK provides a macOS-focused detection analytic description but no official detection logic and no relationship context. SOC and detection engineering teams should validate visibility for unusual outbound SYN/ACK volume, burst patterns, destination spread, process ownership, and concurrent host performance degradation on macOS endpoints. Incident responders should be able to correlate network telemetry with the local process or script responsible, then determine whether the activity is authorized testing, misconfiguration, or malicious behavior.
Likely telemetry
- macOS endpoint process execution and command/script activity
- Endpoint network connection metadata from macOS hosts
- Network flow records showing high-volume SYN/ACK traffic
- Packet capture or sensor data where available to confirm TCP flag patterns
- Host performance telemetry such as CPU, memory, network throughput, and service responsiveness
Detection direction
- Validate that telemetry can identify TCP flag patterns, not only aggregate connection counts.
- Tune for abnormal SYN/ACK volume or bursts from macOS endpoints relative to local baselines and expected roles.
- Correlate network spikes with macOS process/script execution to reduce false positives from legitimate testing or administrative activity.
- Account for blind spots where endpoint tools do not capture packet-level details or where network sensors cannot attribute traffic back to a host process.
- Use service degradation or host responsiveness signals as supporting context, not as the only detection condition.
Mitigation priorities
- Confirm ownership and acceptable-use expectations for macOS systems capable of generating high-volume network traffic.
- Ensure macOS endpoint monitoring and network telemetry are retained long enough for incident reconstruction.
- Apply least-privilege controls and administrative restrictions around tools or scripts that can generate disruptive traffic.
- Define containment playbooks for macOS hosts producing flood-like traffic, including network isolation and business-owner approval paths for critical systems.
- Use network controls, rate limiting, and segmentation where appropriate to limit the operational impact of a single endpoint generating excessive traffic.
Analyst notes and limits
This object is a detection analytic, not a technique description, and the supplied ATT&CK fields only identify macOS as the platform and describe mass SYN/ACK flood behavior. No tactics, related techniques, software, groups, mitigations, or official detection query were supplied. Defensive value depends on local visibility into macOS process activity, TCP flag-level network telemetry, and service performance signals.
The official detection field is not provided, and no relationships were supplied. This take does not assert active exploitation, attribution, business impact, or existing detection coverage. Local baselines and environment-specific validation are required to determine what traffic volume is abnormal and what response actions are appropriate.
Analytic 1014
Adversary tool/script issuing mass SYN/ACK floods that degrade OS responsiveness and interrupt service response on macOS endpoints.
How security teams should use this page
Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.
All related ATT&CK context
No relationships are available in the current normalized data for this object.
Object version and sync metadata
The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates .
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Current bundle | a220fa7b05c3… |
Mirrored ATT&CK source object
The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
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mitre-attack AN1014Open source URL
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