Suspicious PrivilegedHelperTool Activity
Description
Detects the potential abuse of a PrivilegedHelperTool by triggering on the execution of specific system binaries where the parent process is a privilegedhelpertool. This activity is not normal or common and could indicate a privilegedhelpertool exploitation bypass attempt. PrivilegedHelperTools are sometimes targeted via injection and XPC manipulation to bypass macOS security controls in order to elevate privileges, establish privileged persistence, or execute commands as a privileged user.
Query · eql
process where event.type == "start" and
event.action == "exec" and user.name == "root" and
process.parent.executable like "/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/*" and
(
/* shell and common lolbins */
(((process.name like~ ("bash", "zsh", "sh", "tclsh*") and process.args == "-c" and process.args like~ ("/tmp/*",
"*/bin/curl *",
"*/bin/nscurl*",
"*/bin/osascript *",
"*/bin/python*",
"osascript*",
"python*",
"curl*")) or
process.name like~ ("python*", "tclsh*", "osascript", "osacompile", "curl", "nscurl", "wget", "tccd")) and not
process.command_line like~ ("*remove*", "*unload*", "*/Library/Application Support/JAMF/Composer/Sources/*", "*https://www.google.com*")) or
/* unsigned or untrusted macO */
(process.code_signature.exists == false or process.code_signature.trusted == false)
) and not
process.executable like ("/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/*", "/Applications/*") and not
process.parent.executable == "/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.kaseya.VSAHelper" and not
(process.parent.code_signature.trusted == true and process.parent.code_signature.exists == true)