Suspicious CronTab Creation or Modification
editSuspicious CronTab Creation or Modification
editIdentifies attempts to create or modify a crontab via a process that is not crontab (i.e python, osascript, etc.). This activity should not be highly prevalent and could indicate the use of cron as a persistence mechanism by a threat actor.
Rule type: eql
Rule indices:
- logs-endpoint.events.*
Severity: medium
Risk score: 47
Runs every: 5m
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: 101
Rule authors:
- Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
Rule query
editfile where event.type != "deletion" and process.name != null and file.path : "/private/var/at/tabs/*" and not process.executable == "/usr/bin/crontab"
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
-
Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
-
Technique:
- Name: Scheduled Task/Job
- ID: T1053
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1053/
-
Sub-technique:
- Name: Cron
- ID: T1053.003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1053/003/