IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.

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Unexpected Child Process of macOS Screensaver Engine

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Unexpected Child Process of macOS Screensaver Engine

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Identifies when a child process is spawned by the screensaver engine process, which is consistent with an attacker’s malicious payload being executed after the screensaver activated on the endpoint. An adversary can maintain persistence on a macOS endpoint by creating a malicious screensaver (.saver) file and configuring the screensaver plist file to execute code each time the screensaver is activated.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

auditbeat-*
logs-endpoint.events.*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

Runs every: 5 minutes

Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

Tags:

Elastic
Host
macOS
Threat Detection
Persistence

Version: 1

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.16.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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## Triage and analysis

- Analyze the descendant processes of the ScreenSaverEngine process for malicious code and suspicious behavior such
as downloading a payload from a server
- Review the installed and activated screensaver on the host. Triage the screensaver (.saver) file that was triggered to
identify whether the file is malicious or not.

Rule query

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process where event.type == "start" and process.parent.name ==
"ScreenSaverEngine"

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
Technique:
- Name: Event Triggered Execution
- ID: T1546
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1546/

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