Adding Hidden LaunchAgent/Daemon Discovery #8053
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Please see the original PR for historical comments. Opening a clean PR to move away from some chaotic branch conflicts.
Hidden LaunchAgent/Daemon Discovery
Background
As per this issue -> #7703 <- this PR introduces the capability for osquery to identify LaunchAgents/Daemons that are defined in hidden
.plist
files.The TL;DR from the issue linked above is ->
Malware commonly persists on macOS devices using LaunchAgents/Daemons. It has been observed that certain malware samples have been utilising hidden
plist
files i.e./Library/LaunchDaemons/.com.apple.WindowServer.plist
. This PR aims to cover off this blind spot within the current launchd table.Changes
One file has been altered within this PR:
osquery/filesystem/filesystem.cpp
- adding a consistent approach to discovering files and directories. This allows us to identify hidden files; which in this case enables us to identify hidden launch items.Impact
This PR prevents malicious LaunchAgents/Daemons from evading detection by using a hidden plist files. As shown in the screenshot below, we can now identify these hidden plists:
Updates
Since the opening of the original PR, @marcosd4h made some great changes to directory listing (👏) - which I was able to replicate for file discovery to allow us to identify hidden files. Specifically in this case to target macOS launch items.
cc. @Smjert, @directionless from the previous PR.