Persistence via Login or Logout Hook

Identifies use of the Defaults command to install a login or logoff hook in MacOS. An adversary may abuse this capability to establish persistence in an environment by inserting code to be executed at login or logout.

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: 4 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 7.13.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

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process where event.type == "start" and process.name == "defaults"
and process.args == "write" and process.args in ("LoginHook",
"LogoutHook") and not process.args : (
"Support/JAMF/ManagementFrameworkScripts/logouthook.sh",
"Support/JAMF/ManagementFrameworkScripts/loginhook.sh",
"/Library/Application
Support/JAMF/ManagementFrameworkScripts/logouthook.sh",
"/Library/Application
Support/JAMF/ManagementFrameworkScripts/loginhook.sh" )

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: Boot or Logon Initialization Scripts
- ID: T1037
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1037/

Rule version history

edit

Version 4 (7.13.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
process.name == "defaults" and process.args == "write" and
process.args in ("LoginHook", "LogoutHook")

Version 3 (7.12.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 2 (7.11.2 release)

Formatting only

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