Suspicious Automator Workflows Execution

Last updated 5 months ago on 2025-03-18

Created 5 years ago on 2020-12-23

About

Identifies the execution of the Automator Workflows process followed by a network connection from it's XPC service. Adversaries may drop a custom workflow template that hosts malicious JavaScript for Automation (JXA) code as an alternative to using osascript.

Tags

Domain: EndpointOS: macOSUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: ExecutionData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Execution (TA0002)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Command and Scripting Interpreter (T1059)(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.network*logs-endpoint.events.process*
Related Integrations: endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)
Query

sequence by host.id, process.entity_id with maxspan=15s
 [process where host.os.type == "macos" and event.type in ("start", "process_started") and process.name == "Automator"]
 [network where host.os.type == "macos"]

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Suspicious Automator Workflows Execution 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).