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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Elastic Docs ›Elastic Security Solution [8.4] ›Detections and alerts ›Prebuilt rule reference

Potential Persistence via Login Hook

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Potential Persistence via Login Hook

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Identifies the creation or modification of the login window property list (plist). Adversaries may modify plist files to run a program during system boot or user login for persistence.

Rule type: query

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): 7.12.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.4.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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## Triage and analysis

Starting in Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), users can specify certain applications to be re-opened when a user reboots their machine. This can be abused to establish or maintain persistence on a compromised system.

Rule query

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event.category:"file" and not event.type:"deletion" and
file.name:"com.apple.loginwindow.plist" and process.name:(* and not
(systemmigrationd or DesktopServicesHelper or diskmanagementd or rsync
or launchd or cfprefsd or xpcproxy or ManagedClient or MCXCompositor
or backupd or "iMazing Profile Editor" ))

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 4 (8.4.0 release)

  • Updated query, changed from:

    event.category:"file" and not event.type:"deletion" and
file.name:"com.apple.loginwindow.plist" and process.name:(* and not
(systemmigrationd or DesktopServicesHelper or diskmanagementd or rsync
or launchd or cfprefsd or xpcproxy or ManagedClient or MCXCompositor))
Version 2 (7.13.0 release)
  • Formatting only
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