SystemKey Access via Command Line

Last updated 5 months ago on 2025-03-18

Created 6 years ago on 2020-01-07

About

Keychains are the built-in way for macOS to keep track of users' passwords and credentials for many services and features, including Wi-Fi and website passwords, secure notes, certificates, and Kerberos. Adversaries may collect the keychain storage data from a system to acquire credentials.

Tags

Domain: EndpointOS: macOSUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Credential AccessData Source: Elastic DefendLanguage: eql

Severity

high

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Credential Access (TA0006)(opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Credentials from Password Stores (T1555)(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.args in ("/private/var/db/SystemKey", "/var/db/SystemKey") and
  not process.Ext.effective_parent.executable like "/Library/Elastic/Endpoint/elastic-endpoint.app/Contents/MacOS/elastic-endpoint"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect SystemKey Access via Command Line 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).