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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LaunchDaemon Creation or Modification and Immediate Loading

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LaunchDaemon Creation or Modification and Immediate Loading

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Indicates the creation or modification of a launch daemon, which adversaries may use to repeatedly execute malicious payloads as part of persistence.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

auditbeat-*
logs-endpoint.events.*

Severity: low

Risk score: 21

Runs every: 5 minutes

Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CreatingLaunchdJobs.html

Tags:

Elastic
Host
macOS
Threat Detection
Persistence

Version: 6 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.4.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Potential false positives

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Trusted applications persisting via LaunchDaemons

Rule query

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sequence by host.id with maxspan=1m [file where event.type !=
"deletion" and file.path : ("/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/*",
"/Library/LaunchDaemons/*")] [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.name == "launchctl" and process.args ==
"load"]

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: Create or Modify System Process
- ID: T1543
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1543/

Rule version history

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Version 6 (8.4.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

sequence by host.id with maxspan=1m [file where event.type !=
"deletion" and file.path in ("/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/*",
"/Library/LaunchDaemons/*")] [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.name == "launchctl" and process.args ==
"load"]

Version 4 (8.2.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 3 (8.0.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

sequence by host.id with maxspan=1m [file where event.type !=
"deletion" and file.path in ("/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/*", "
/Library/LaunchDaemons/*")] [process where event.type in ("start",
"process_started") and process.name == "launchctl" and process.args ==
"load"]

Version 2 (7.12.0 release)

Formatting only

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