Potential Privacy Control Bypass via Localhost Secure Copy

Last updated 9 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

MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism (T1548)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Privilege Escalation (TA0004)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism (T1548)(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.process*
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 == "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(external, opens in a new tab or window).