Suspicious Hidden Child Process of Launchd

Last updated 9 months ago on 2025-03-18

Created 6 years ago on 2020-01-07

About

Identifies the execution of a launchd child process with a hidden file. An adversary can establish persistence by installing a new logon item, launch agent, or daemon that executes upon login.

Tags

Domain: EndpointOS: macOSUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: PersistenceTactic: Defense EvasionData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Persistence (TA0003)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Create or Modify System Process (T1543)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Defense Evasion (TA0005)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Hide Artifacts (T1564)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

License

Elastic License v2(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type: Event Correlation Rule
Integration Pack: Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns: logs-endpoint.events.*
Related Integrations: endpoint(external, opens in a new tab or window)
Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗process where host.os.type == "macos" and event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
 process.name like~ ".*" and process.parent.name == "launchd"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Suspicious Hidden Child Process of Launchd in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(external, opens in a new tab or window).