Modification of Safari Settings via Defaults Command

Last updated 9 months ago on 2025-03-18

Created 5 years ago on 2021-01-14

About

Identifies changes to the Safari configuration using the built-in defaults command. Adversaries may attempt to enable or disable certain Safari settings, such as enabling JavaScript from Apple Events to ease in the hijacking of the users browser.

Tags

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

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ Impair Defenses (T1562)(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 == "defaults" and process.args like~ ("com.apple.Safari", "write") and 
  not process.args like~ ("UniversalSearchEnabled", "SuppressSearchSuggestions", "WebKitTabToLinksPreferenceKey", 
                          "ShowFullURLInSmartSearchField", "com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2TabsToLinks")

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Modification of Safari Settings via Defaults Command 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).