T1614.001sub-technique of T1614 System Location Discovery

System Language Discovery

Linux · macOS · Windowsnothing on this site yetT1614.001 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may attempt to gather information about the system language of a victim in order to infer the geographical location of that host. This information may be used to shape follow-on behaviors, including whether the adversary infects the target and/or attempts specific actions.
MITRE ATT&CK 19.2, retrieved 2026-09-12

how MITRE says to see it

Detection Strategy for System Language Discovery

Registry access to system language keys (e.g., HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\Language) or suspicious processes invoking locale-related APIs (e.g., GetUserDefaultUILanguage, GetSystemDefaultUILanguage, GetKeyboardLayoutList).
Processes executing commands to query system locale and language settings, such as 'locale', 'echo $LANG', or parsing environment variables. Suspicious activity is indicated by these commands being run by unusual users, automation scripts, or non-administrative processes.
Execution of commands to query system locale and language settings, such as 'defaults read -g AppleLocale' or 'systemsetup -gettimezone'. Unusual parent processes or execution contexts of these commands may indicate adversarial discovery.

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