Potential Privacy Control Bypass via Localhost Secure Copy

Last updated 6 months ago on 2025-03-18
Created 6 years ago on 2020-01-11

About

Identifies use of the Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) to copy files locally by abusing the auto addition of the Secure Shell Daemon (sshd) to the authorized application list for Full Disk Access. This may indicate attempts to bypass macOS privacy controls to access sensitive files.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: macOSUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Privilege EscalationTactic: Defense EvasionData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql
Severity
high
Risk Score
73
MITRE ATT&CK™

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

Privilege Escalation (TA0004)(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.process*
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 == "scp" and
 process.args like~ "StrictHostKeyChecking=no" and
 process.command_line : ("scp *localhost:/*", "scp *127.0.0.1:/*") and
 not process.args : "vagrant@*127.0.0.1*"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Potential Privacy Control Bypass via Localhost Secure Copy 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).