Creation of Hidden Login Item via Apple Scriptedit

Identifies the execution of osascript to create a hidden login item. This may indicate an attempt to persist a malicious program while concealing its presence.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

  • auditbeat-*
  • 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: None

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Host
  • macOS
  • Threat Detection
  • Persistence
  • Execution

Version: 2

Rule authors:

  • Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Investigation guideedit

## Config

If enabling an EQL rule on a non-elastic-agent index (such as beats) for versions <8.2, events will not define `event.ingested` and default fallback for EQL rules was not added until 8.2, so you will need to add a custom pipeline to populate `event.ingested` to @timestamp for this rule to work.

Rule queryedit

process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and process.name : "osascript" and
 process.command_line : "osascript*login item*hidden:true*"

Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM