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

In Windows environments, adversaries could obtain details on running processes using the Tasklist utility via cmd or Get-Process via PowerShell. Information about processes can also be extracted from the output of Native API calls such as CreateToolhelp32Snapshot. In Mac and Linux, this is accomplished with the ps command. Adversaries may also opt to enumerate processes via /proc. ESXi also supports use of the ps command, as well as esxcli system process list.^[1],[2]

On network devices, Network Device CLI commands such as show processes can be used to display current running processes.^[3],[4]

References

1. Zhongyuan Hau (Aaron), Ren Jie Yow, and Yoav Mazor. (2025, January 21). ESXi Ransomware Attacks: Stealthy Persistence through. Retrieved March 27, 2025.
2. Michael Dawson. (2021, August 30). Hypervisor Jackpotting, Part 2: eCrime Actors Increase Targeting of ESXi Servers with Ransomware. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
3. US-CERT. (2018, April 20). Alert (TA18-106A) Russian State-Sponsored Cyber Actors Targeting Network Infrastructure Devices. Retrieved October 19, 2020.
4. Cisco. (2022, August 16). show processes - . Retrieved July 13, 2022.

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