MITRE ATT&CKsub-technique

T1614.001 System Language Discovery

Published 2021-08-18 Modified 2026-05-12 Official page ↗
Domain
enterprise
Tactics
Discovery
Platforms
Linux, macOS, Windows
Version
1.1
Created
2021-08-18

Description

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. This decision may be employed by malware developers and operators to reduce their risk of attracting the attention of specific law enforcement agencies or prosecution/scrutiny from other entities. There are various sources of data an adversary could use to infer system language, such as system defaults and keyboard layouts. Specific checks will vary based on the target and/or adversary, but may involve behaviors such as Query Registry and calls to Native API functions. For example, on a Windows system adversaries may attempt to infer the language of a system by querying the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\Language or parsing the outputs of Windows API functions GetUserDefaultUILanguage, GetSystemDefaultUILanguage, GetKeyboardLayoutList and GetUserDefaultLangID. On a macOS or Linux system, adversaries may query locale to retrieve the value of the $LANG environment variable.

Related

Subtechnique of · MITRE ATT&CK (1)

  • T1614 System Location Discovery technique

Tactic · MITRE ATT&CK (1)

Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · uses (42)

  • S9043 Mini Shai-Hulud software (malware)
  • S9042 CanisterWorm software (malware)
  • C0061 Operation Digital Eye campaign
  • G1054 MirrorFace group
  • S9020 LODEINFO software (malware)
  • S9010 GlassWorm software (malware)
  • G1053 Storm-0501 group
  • S1240 RedLine Stealer software (malware)
  • S1228 PUBLOAD software (malware)
  • S1202 LockBit 3.0 software (malware)
  • S1200 StealBit software (malware)
  • S1199 LockBit 2.0 software (malware)
  • S1183 StrelaStealer software (malware)
  • S1180 BlackByte Ransomware software (malware)
  • G1043 BlackByte group
  • S1153 Cuckoo Stealer software (malware)
  • S1138 Gootloader software (malware)
  • G1026 Malteiro group
  • S1122 Mispadu software (malware)
  • C0022 Operation Dream Job campaign
  • S0696 Flagpro software (malware)
  • S0691 Neoichor software (malware)
  • S0658 XCSSET software (malware)
  • S0652 MarkiRAT software (malware)
  • S0640 Avaddon software (malware)
  • S0632 GrimAgent software (malware)
  • S0625 Cuba software (malware)
  • S0616 DEATHRANSOM software (malware)
  • S0611 Clop software (malware)
  • S0546 SharpStage software (malware)
Show all 42 ›

References