Creation of Hidden Launch Agent or Daemon

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Identifies the creation of a hidden launch agent or daemon. An adversary may establish persistence by installing a new launch agent or daemon which executes at login.

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
  • Defense Evasion

Version: 100 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.12.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guide

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Rule query

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file where event.type != "deletion" and file.path : (
"/System/Library/LaunchAgents/.*.plist",
"/Library/LaunchAgents/.*.plist",
"/Users/*/Library/LaunchAgents/.*.plist",
"/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/.*.plist",
"/Library/LaunchDaemons/.*.plist" )

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 100 (8.5.0 release)
  • Formatting only
Version 4 (8.4.0 release)
  • Updated query, changed from:

    file where event.type != "deletion" and file.path : (
    "/System/Library/LaunchAgents/.*.plist",
    "/Library/LaunchAgents/.*.plist",
    "/Users/*/Library/LaunchAgents/.*.plist",
    "/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/.*.plist",
    "/Library/LaunchDaemons/.*.plist" )
Version 2 (8.2.0 release)
  • Formatting only