Attempt to Remove File Quarantine Attribute

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Identifies a potential Gatekeeper bypass. In macOS, when applications or programs are downloaded from the internet, there is a quarantine flag set on the file. This attribute is read by Apple’s Gatekeeper defense program at execution time. An adversary may disable this attribute to evade defenses.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • auditbeat-*
  • logs-endpoint.events.*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 43

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
  • Defense Evasion

Version: 2 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.2

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License

Rule query

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process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
process.name == "xattr" and process.args == "com.apple.quarantine" and
process.args == "-d"

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 2 (7.11.2 release)
  • Formatting only