Launch Item Registration with Suspicious Executable Path via macOS Security Events

Last updated 15 days ago on 2026-10-06

Created a month ago on 2026-09-22

About

Identifies the registration of a launch agent or launch daemon whose target executable resides in a temporary or user-writable location, using launch item registration messages collected by the macOS Security Events integration. An adversary may establish persistence with a launch agent or daemon that runs a program staged in a world-writable or temporary directory, which is uncommon for legitimate software.

Tags

OS: macOSUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: PersistenceData Source: macOS Security EventsRule Type: ESQLPlatform: macOSDomain: EndpointLanguage: esql

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)

License

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

Definition

Integration Pack: Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Related Integrations: macos(external, opens in a new tab or window)
Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗FROM logs-macos.process_execution_monitoring-* metadata _id, _version, _index
| WHERE data_stream.dataset == "macos.process_execution_monitoring" and
    macos.event.message.description LIKE "*effectiveItemDisposition*" and
    (macos.event.message.description LIKE "*url=file://*/Library/LaunchAgents/*" or
        macos.event.message.description LIKE "*url=file://*/Library/LaunchDaemons/*")
| GROK macos.event.message.description "url=file://%{DATA:Esql.plist_path}, config"
| GROK macos.event.message.description "type=%{DATA:Esql.item_type},"
| GROK macos.event.message.description "BTMConfigExecutablePath = \"%{DATA:Esql.executable}\""
| WHERE Esql.executable RLIKE "/(private/)?(tmp|var/tmp|var/folders)/.*|/Users/Shared/.*|/Users/[^/]+/(Downloads|Public|Library/Caches)/.*"
| KEEP _id, _version, _index, @timestamp, host.name, Esql.executable, Esql.plist_path, Esql.item_type, macos.event.message.description

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Launch Item Registration with Suspicious Executable Path via macOS Security Events 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).