T1057

Process Discovery

ESXi · Linux · macOS · Network Devices · Windowsnothing on this site yetT1057 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may attempt to get information about running processes on a system. Information obtained could be used to gain an understanding of common software/applications running on systems within the network. Administrator or otherwise elevated access may provide better process details.
MITRE ATT&CK 19.2, retrieved 2026-09-12

how MITRE says to see it

Detection of Adversarial Process Discovery Behavior

Identifies adversary behavior that launches commands or invokes APIs to enumerate active processes (e.g., tasklist.exe, Get-Process, or CreateToolhelp32Snapshot). Detects execution combined with parent process lineage, network session context, or remote origin.
Detects execution of common process enumeration utilities (e.g., ps, top, htop) or access to /proc with suspicious ancestry. Correlates command usage with interactive shell context and user role.
Monitors execution of ps, top, or launchctl with unusual parent processes or from terminal scripts. Also detects AppleScript-based process listing or `system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType` misuse.
Detects process enumeration using `esxcli system process list` or `ps` on ESXi shell or via unauthorized SSH sessions. Correlates with interactive sessions and abnormal user roles.

The description, detection analytics and mitigations are reproduced from MITRE ATT&CK, version 19.2, under its terms of use. The checklists, hunts, labs and everything else linked here are this site’s.