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MITRE ATT&CK® Technique

T1007: System Service Discovery

Adversaries may try to gather information about registered local system services. Adversaries may obtain information about services using tools as well as OS utility commands such as sc query, tasklist /svc, systemctl --type=service, and net start. Adversaries may also gather information about schedule tasks via commands such as `schtasks` on Windows or `crontab -l` on Linux and macOS.[1][2][3][4]

Adversaries may use the information from System Service Discovery during automated discovery to shape follow-on behaviors, including whether or not the adversary fully infects the target and/or attempts specific actions.

EnterpriseT1007TechniqueObject v1.6 Modified
Glexia's Take

Analyst context for executives and security teams

Analyst confidence High

System Service Discovery is adversary reconnaissance of local services and scheduled tasks across Windows, Linux, and macOS. Its business importance is that it often helps an intruder decide what to do next: whether to continue infection, choose a persistence path, avoid security tools, or tailor follow-on actions to the host. For leaders, this is a coverage-validation technique: can the organization see common service-enumeration activity before it becomes lateral movement, persistence, or broader compromise?

Executive priority

Prioritize this as a SOC and incident-response readiness check rather than a standalone high-severity event. The commands MITRE lists, such as sc query, tasklist /svc, systemctl --type=service, net start, schtasks, and crontab -l, are legitimate administration tools, so value comes from context, baselining, and correlation. This technique is documented in relationships with multiple campaigns, groups, and malware/software entries, including espionage and cloud/container-focused contexts, making it relevant to enterprise resilience, intellectual property protection, managed detection quality, and audit evidence that endpoint and command telemetry are actually being collected.

Technical view

For SOC and detection engineering, validate visibility for service and scheduled-task enumeration on Windows, Linux, and macOS. ATT&CK provides no official detection text for T1007, but the relationship to DET0483, “Detection of System Service Discovery Commands Across OS Platforms,” supports building detections around cross-platform command execution patterns. Focus on process creation, command-line arguments, parent/child process relationships, user context, remote execution context where available, and clustering with other discovery behaviors. Treat single commands carefully because administrators and management tooling commonly enumerate services; higher-confidence alerts should consider unusual user, host role, execution chain, time of day, repeated enumeration, or proximity to suspicious access or execution events.

Likely telemetry

  • Endpoint process creation events with full command line for Windows, Linux, and macOS
  • Windows command execution involving sc query, tasklist /svc, net start, and schtasks
  • Linux and macOS command execution involving systemctl --type=service and crontab -l
  • Parent process, user account, host role, and session context for service-enumeration commands
  • Scheduled task and cron listing/audit records where available

Detection direction

  • Validate DET0483-style coverage for service discovery commands across all supported platforms, not only Windows.
  • Tune detections against known administrative software, patching tools, monitoring agents, and standard operating procedures to reduce false positives.
  • Prioritize alerts when service discovery is launched by unusual parent processes, non-administrative users, newly observed accounts, or processes associated with suspicious execution.
  • Correlate service and scheduled-task enumeration with adjacent discovery activity and later attempts to establish persistence, move laterally, or alter services.
  • Check blind spots where command-line logging is disabled, EDR coverage is missing on servers, Linux/macOS telemetry is weaker than Windows telemetry, or scheduled-task/cron visibility is not centralized.

Mitigation priorities

  • Ensure endpoint logging and EDR coverage capture process command lines and process lineage across Windows, Linux, and macOS.
  • Limit routine administrative privileges and service-management permissions to appropriate roles, reducing the number of accounts that can legitimately perform broad service enumeration.
  • Standardize administrative tooling and document expected service-discovery behavior so SOC teams can distinguish normal operations from suspicious use.
  • Harden scheduled task and cron administration with access controls and monitoring, since ATT&CK includes scheduled-task discovery in this technique description.
  • Use incident-response playbooks that treat suspicious service discovery as a prompt to review surrounding activity, affected account scope, and possible follow-on behavior rather than as proof of compromise by itself.
Analyst notes and limits

ATT&CK lists this as an enterprise discovery technique, not a sub-technique, with platforms Linux, macOS, and Windows. The supplied relationships show use by multiple groups, campaigns, and software, and one detection strategy relationship, but the official ATT&CK detection field is not provided. The practical defensive value is therefore in validating telemetry and correlation logic for legitimate OS utilities that can also support adversary decision-making.

This take is based only on the supplied ATT&CK object fields, external references, and relationships. It does not establish current exploitation, local exposure, actor attribution, or confirmed detection coverage in any environment. Local baselines, logging configuration, endpoint coverage, and administrative workflows are required to determine alert severity and response priority.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

System Service Discovery

Adversaries may try to gather information about registered local system services. Adversaries may obtain information about services using tools as well as OS utility commands such as sc query, tasklist /svc, systemctl --type=service, and net start. Adversaries may also gather information about schedule tasks via commands such as `schtasks` on Windows or `crontab -l` on Linux and macOS.[1][2][3][4]

Adversaries may use the information from System Service Discovery during automated discovery to shape follow-on behaviors, including whether or not the adversary fully infects the target and/or attempts specific actions.

View the same entry on attack.mitre.org (MITRE-hosted reference; in-page links above use the Glexia ATT&CK library.)

Glexia analysis

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.

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

Group Enterprise

G0060: BRONZE BUTLER

BRONZE BUTLER is a cyber espionage group with likely Chinese origins that has been active since at least 2008. The group primarily targets Japanese organizations, particularly those in government, biotechnology, electronics manufacturing, and industrial chemistry.[1][2][3]

Group Enterprise

G0139: TeamTNT

TeamTNT is a threat group that has primarily targeted cloud and containerized environments. The group as been active since at least October 2019 and has mainly focused its efforts on leveraging cloud and container resources to deploy cryptocurrency miners in victim environments.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

Group Enterprise

G0049: OilRig

OilRig is a suspected Iranian threat group that has targeted Middle Eastern and international victims since at least 2014. The group has targeted a variety of sectors, including financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications. It appears the group carries out supply chain attacks, leveraging the trust relationship between organizations to attack their primary targets. The group works on behalf of the Iranian government based on infrastructure details that contain references to Iran, use of Iranian infrastructure, and targeting that aligns with nation-state interests.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

Group Enterprise

G0010: Turla

Turla is a cyber espionage threat group that has been attributed to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). They have compromised victims in over 50 countries since at least 2004, spanning a range of industries including government, embassies, military, education, research and pharmaceutical companies. Turla is known for conducting watering hole and spearphishing campaigns, and leveraging in-house tools and malware, such as Uroburos.[1][2][3][4][5]

Group Enterprise

G0143: Aquatic Panda

Aquatic Panda is a suspected China-based threat group with a dual mission of intelligence collection and industrial espionage. Active since at least May 2020, Aquatic Panda has primarily targeted entities in the telecommunications, technology, and government sectors.[1]

Group Enterprise

G0033: Poseidon Group

Poseidon Group is a Portuguese-speaking threat group that has been active since at least 2005. The group has a history of using information exfiltrated from victims to blackmail victim companies into contracting the Poseidon Group as a security firm. [1]

Group Enterprise

G0094: Kimsuky

Kimsuky is a Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)-based cyber espionage group that has been active since at least 2012. The group initially targeted South Korean government agencies, think tanks, and subject-matter experts in various fields. Its operations expanded to include the United Nations and organizations in the government, education, business services, and manufacturing sectors across the United States, Japan, Russia, and Europe. Kimsuky has focused collection on foreign policy and national security issues tied to the Korean Peninsula, nuclear policy, and sanctions. Kimsuky operations have overlapped with those of other North Korean state-sponsored cyber espionage actors as a result of ad hoc collaborations or other limited resource sharing.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Kimsuky was assessed to be responsible for the 2014 Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. compromise; other notable campaigns include Operation STOLEN PENCIL (2018), Operation Kabar Cobra (2019), and Operation Smoke Screen (2019).[7][8][9] In 2023, Kimsuky was observed using commercial large language models (LLMs) to assist with vulnerability research, scripting, social engineering and reconnaissance.[10]

DPRK threat actor cluster boundaries overlap in open source reporting, with some security researchers consolidating all attributed North Korean state-sponsored cyber activity under Lazarus Group, rather than tracking operationally distinct subgroups.

Group Enterprise

G0114: Chimera

Chimera is a suspected China-based threat group that has been active since at least 2018 targeting the semiconductor industry in Taiwan as well as data from the airline industry.[1][2]

Group Enterprise

G0004: Ke3chang

Ke3chang is a threat group attributed to actors operating out of China. Ke3chang has targeted oil, government, diplomatic, military, and NGOs in Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and North America since at least 2010.[1][2][3][4]

Group Enterprise

G1054: MirrorFace

MirrorFace is a People's Republic of China (PRC)-aligned cyberespionage actor believed to be a subgroup under the menuPass umbrella based on targeting, tools, and infrastructure overlaps. MirrorFace has been active since at least 2019, at first exclusively targeting Japanese organizations across the media, defense, diplomatic, financial, manufacturing, and academic sectors. Subsequent MirrorFace operations included targets in Central Europe and featured use of LODEINFO, HiddenFace, and UPPERCUT malware.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Group Enterprise

G1006: Earth Lusca

Earth Lusca is a suspected China-based cyber espionage group that has been active since at least April 2019. Earth Lusca has targeted organizations in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Germany, France, and the United States. Targets included government institutions, news media outlets, gambling companies, educational institutions, COVID-19 research organizations, telecommunications companies, religious movements banned in China, and cryptocurrency trading platforms; security researchers assess some Earth Lusca operations may be financially motivated.[1]

Earth Lusca has used malware commonly used by other Chinese threat groups, including APT41 and the Winnti Group cluster, however security researchers assess Earth Lusca's techniques and infrastructure are separate.[1]

Malware Enterprise

S0386: Ursnif

Ursnif is a banking trojan and variant of the Gozi malware observed being spread through various automated exploit kits, Spearphishing Attachments, and malicious links.[1][2] Ursnif is associated primarily with data theft, but variants also include components (backdoors, spyware, file injectors, etc.) capable of a wide variety of behaviors.[3]

Windows
Malware Enterprise

S0018: Sykipot

Sykipot is malware that has been used in spearphishing campaigns since approximately 2007 against victims primarily in the US. One variant of Sykipot hijacks smart cards on victims. [1] The group using this malware has also been referred to as Sykipot. [2]

Windows
Tool Enterprise

S0039: Net

The Net utility is a component of the Windows operating system. It is used in command-line operations for control of users, groups, services, and network connections. [1]

Net has a great deal of functionality, [2] much of which is useful for an adversary, such as gathering system and network information for Discovery, moving laterally through SMB/Windows Admin Shares using net use commands, and interacting with services. The net1.exe utility is executed for certain functionality when net.exe is run and can be used directly in commands such as net1 user.

Windows
Malware Enterprise

S0081: Elise

Elise is a custom backdoor Trojan that appears to be used exclusively by Lotus Blossom. It is part of a larger group of tools referred to as LStudio, ST Group, and APT0LSTU.[1][2]

Windows
Tool Enterprise

S0378: PoshC2

PoshC2 is an open source remote administration and post-exploitation framework that is publicly available on GitHub. The server-side components of the tool are primarily written in Python, while the implants are written in PowerShell. Although PoshC2 is primarily focused on Windows implantation, it does contain a basic Python dropper for Linux/macOS.[1]

WindowsLinuxmacOS
Malware Enterprise

S0533: SLOTHFULMEDIA

SLOTHFULMEDIA is a remote access Trojan written in C++ that has been used by an unidentified "sophisticated cyber actor" since at least January 2017.[1][2] It has been used to target government organizations, defense contractors, universities, and energy companies in Russia, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe.[3][4]

In October 2020, Kaspersky Labs assessed SLOTHFULMEDIA is part of an activity cluster it refers to as "IAmTheKing".[4] ESET also noted code similarity between SLOTHFULMEDIA and droppers used by a group it refers to as "PowerPool".[5]

Windows
Malware Enterprise

S1244: Medusa Ransomware

Medusa Ransomware has been utilized in attacks since at least 2021. Medusa Ransomware has been known to be utilized in conjunction with living off the land techniques and remote management software. Medusa Ransomware has been used in campaigns associated with “double extortion” ransomware activity, where data is exfiltrated from victim environments prior to encryption, with threats to publish files if a ransom is not paid. Medusa Ransomware software was initially a closed ransomware variant which later evolved to a Ransomware as a Service (RaaS). Medusa Ransomware has impacted victims from a diverse range of sectors within a multitude of countries, and it is assessed Medusa Ransomware is used in an opportunistic manner.[1][2][3][4]

Malware Enterprise

S0236: Kwampirs

Kwampirs is a backdoor Trojan used by Orangeworm. Kwampirs has been found on machines which had software installed for the use and control of high-tech imaging devices such as X-Ray and MRI machines.[1] Kwampirs has multiple technical overlaps with Shamoon based on reverse engineering analysis.[2]

Windows
Tool Enterprise

S0057: Tasklist

The Tasklist utility displays a list of applications and services with their Process IDs (PID) for all tasks running on either a local or a remote computer. It is packaged with Windows operating systems and can be executed from the command-line interface. [1]

Malware Enterprise

S0283: jRAT

jRAT is a cross-platform, Java-based backdoor originally available for purchase in 2012. Variants of jRAT have been distributed via a software-as-a-service platform, similar to an online subscription model.[1] [2]

LinuxWindowsmacOS
Campaign Enterprise

C0014: Operation Wocao

Operation Wocao was a cyber espionage campaign that targeted organizations around the world, including in Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The suspected China-based actors compromised government organizations and managed service providers, as well as aviation, construction, energy, finance, health care, insurance, offshore engineering, software development, and transportation companies.[1]

Security researchers assessed the Operation Wocao actors used similar TTPs and tools as APT20, suggesting a possible overlap. Operation Wocao was named after an observed command line entry by one of the threat actors, possibly out of frustration from losing webshell access.[1]

Campaign Enterprise

C0012: Operation CuckooBees

Operation CuckooBees was a cyber espionage campaign targeting technology and manufacturing companies in East Asia, Western Europe, and North America since at least 2019. Security researchers noted the goal of Operation CuckooBees, which was still ongoing as of May 2022, was likely the theft of proprietary information, research and development documents, source code, and blueprints for various technologies. Researchers assessed Operation CuckooBees was conducted by actors affiliated with Winnti Group, APT41, and BARIUM.[1]

Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

Change history

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 .

ATT&CK release
19.1
Object version
1.6
Created
Modified
Raw hash
2c30d9d549efcf8b...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
Release Bundle imported Object version Modified Status Raw hash
19.1 1.6 Current bundle 2c30d9d549ef…
Raw source

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.

Source references

External references and citations

MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.

  1. [1]
    Elastic Security Labs GOSAR 2024

    Jia Yu Chan, Salim Bitam, Daniel Stepanic, and Seth Goodwin. (2024, December 12). Under the SADBRIDGE with GOSAR: QUASAR Gets a Golang Rewrite. Retrieved May 22, 2025.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    SentinelLabs macOS Malware 2021

    Phil Stokes. (2021, February 16). 20 Common Tools & Techniques Used by macOS Threat Actors & Malware. Retrieved May 22, 2025.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    Splunk Linux Gormir 2024

    Splunk Threat Research Team , Teoderick Contreras. (2024, July 15). Breaking Down Linux.Gomir: Understanding this Backdoor’s TTPs. Retrieved May 22, 2025.

    Open source URL
  4. [4]
    Aquasec Kinsing 2020

    Gal Singer. (2020, April 3). Threat Alert: Kinsing Malware Attacks Targeting Container Environments. Retrieved May 22, 2025.

    Open source URL
  5. [5]
    mitre-attack T1007
    Open source URL
Source and licensing

Source: MITRE ATT&CK®. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation. Glexia is not affiliated with or endorsed by MITRE.