Elastic Security Detection Rules

Attempt to Disable Gatekeeper

Last updated 5 months ago on 2025-03-18
Created 5 years ago on 2021-01-11

About

Detects attempts to disable Gatekeeper on macOS. Gatekeeper is a security feature that's designed to ensure that only trusted software is run. Adversaries may attempt to disable Gatekeeper before executing malicious code.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: macOSUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Defense EvasionData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ Subvert Trust Controls (T1553)(opens in a new tab or window)

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

Query
process where host.os.type == "macos" and event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
 process.name == "spctl" and
 process.args like~ "--master-disable"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Attempt to Disable Gatekeeper 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(opens in a new tab or window).