Dock Tile Plug-In Load


Description

Detects when an Application's Dock Tile Plugin gets mapped into memory by the macOS XPC external dock service process. Threat actors can add Dock Tile Plugins to their applications (APP_NAME.app/Contents/PlugIns/DockTile). The plugin will be recognized by launch services, registered, and the plugin will be loaded. These plugins are not visible to the user, can react to various system events, and will be loaded at each login, so persists across reboots, and runs inside a legitimate system process which is not sandboxed.

Query · eql

library where event.action == "load" and process.name == "com.apple.dock.external.extra.arm64"
Raw source Dock Tile Plug-In Load · Elastic TOML
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Published by elastic/protections-artifacts ↗, licensed under Elastic License 2.0 ↗. Reproduced here unmodified.
[rule]
description = """
Detects when an Application's Dock Tile Plugin gets mapped into memory by the macOS XPC external dock service process.
Threat actors can add Dock Tile Plugins to their applications (APP_NAME.app/Contents/PlugIns/DockTile). The plugin will
be recognized by launch services, registered, and the plugin will be loaded. These plugins are not visible to the user,
can react to various system events, and will be loaded at each login, so persists across reboots, and runs inside a
legitimate system process which is not sandboxed.
"""
id = "6fc9c19f-0315-482c-b056-e20a8d0f1b2e"
license = "Elastic License v2"
name = "Dock Tile Plug-In Load"
os_list = ["macos"]
reference = ["https://theevilbit.github.io/beyond/beyond_0032/"]
version = "1.0.5"

query = '''
library where event.action == "load" and process.name == "com.apple.dock.external.extra.arm64"
'''

min_endpoint_version = "8.7.0"
optional_actions = []
[[actions]]
action = "kill_process"
field = "Effective_process.executable"
state = 0

[[actions]]
action = "kill_process"
field = "process.entity_id"
state = 0

[[threat]]
framework = "MITRE ATT&CK"
[[threat.technique]]
id = "T1547"
name = "Boot or Logon Autostart Execution"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1547/"


[threat.tactic]
id = "TA0003"
name = "Persistence"
reference = "https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/"

[internal]
min_endpoint_version = "8.7.0"

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