T1564.009sub-technique of T1564 Hide Artifacts

Resource Forking

macOSnothing on this site yetT1564.009 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may abuse resource forks to hide malicious code or executables to evade detection and bypass security applications. A resource fork provides applications a structured way to store resources such as thumbnail images, menu definitions, icons, dialog boxes, and code. Usage of a resource fork is identifiable when displaying a file’s extended attributes, using `ls -l@` or `xattr -l` commands.
MITRE ATT&CK 19.2, retrieved 2026-09-12

how MITRE says to see it

Detection Strategy for Resource Forking on macOS

Unexpected creation or modification of files with `com.apple.ResourceFork` extended attributes containing unusually large or non-standard data. Defender perspective: detection of resource forks in contexts where they are uncommon, especially when paired with process execution or network activity.

what reduces it

M1013 Application Developer Guidance. Configure applications to use the application bundle structure which leverages the `/Resources` folder location.

the rest of T1564

T1564.001 Hidden Files and Directories · not covered yet
T1564.002 Hidden Users · not covered yet
T1564.003 Hidden Window · not covered yet
T1564.004 NTFS File Attributes · not covered yet
T1564.005 Hidden File System · not covered yet
T1564.006 Run Virtual Instance · not covered yet
T1564.007 VBA Stomping · not covered yet
T1564.008 Email Hiding Rules · 2 on this site
T1564.010 Process Argument Spoofing · not covered yet
T1564.011 Ignore Process Interrupts · not covered yet
T1564.012 File/Path Exclusions · not covered yet
T1564.013 Bind Mounts · not covered yet
T1564.014 Extended Attributes · not covered yet

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.