Unexpected Child Process of macOS Screensaver Engineedit
Identifies when a child process is spawned by the screensaver engine process, which is consistent with an attacker’s malicious payload being executed after the screensaver activated on the endpoint. An adversary can maintain persistence on a macOS endpoint by creating a malicious screensaver (.saver) file and configuring the screensaver plist file to execute code each time the screensaver is activated.
Rule type: eql
Rule indices:
- auditbeat-*
- logs-endpoint.events.*
Severity: medium
Risk score: 47
Runs every: 5 minutes
Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time
)
Maximum alerts per execution: 100
References:
Tags:
- Elastic
- Host
- macOS
- Threat Detection
- Persistence
Version: 100 (version history)
Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.16.0
Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0
Rule authors: Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
Investigation guideedit
## Triage and analysis - Analyze the descendant processes of the ScreenSaverEngine process for malicious code and suspicious behavior such as a download of a payload from a server. - Review the installed and activated screensaver on the host. Triage the screensaver (.saver) file that was triggered to identify whether the file is malicious or not.
Rule queryedit
process where event.type == "start" and process.parent.name == "ScreenSaverEngine"
Threat mappingedit
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
-
Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
-
Technique:
- Name: Event Triggered Execution
- ID: T1546
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1546/
Rule version historyedit
- Version 100 (8.5.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 5 (8.4.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 3 (8.2.0 release)
-
- Formatting only
- Version 2 (8.1.0 release)
-
- Formatting only