Detection: MacOS Gatekeeper Bypass

Updated Date: 2026-04-15 ID: 2c9346f3-bbeb-48ce-8411-fc13d09d83a5 Author: Raven Tait, Splunk Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

Detects known MacOS security bypass techniques that may be used to enable malicious code execution. Specifically monitors for attempts to remove the com.apple.quarantine attribute using xattr, or to disable Gatekeeper protections via spctl --master-disable, both of which can allow untrusted or malicious applications to execute without standard system safeguards.

Search

 1
 2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly`
 3  count min(_time) as firstTime
 4        max(_time) as lastTime
 5
 6from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where
 7
 8(
 9    Processes.process = "*xattr*"
10    Processes.process = "*com.apple.quarantine*"
11)
12OR
13(
14    Processes.process = "*spctl*"
15    Processes.process = "*master-disable*"
16)
17
18by Processes.dest Processes.original_file_name Processes.parent_process_id
19   Processes.process Processes.process_exec Processes.process_guid
20   Processes.process_hash Processes.process_id
21   Processes.process_current_directory Processes.process_name
22   Processes.process_path Processes.user
23   Processes.user_id Processes.vendor_product
24
25
26| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)`
27
28| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
29
30| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
31
32| `macos_gatekeeper_bypass_filter`

Data Source

Name	Platform	Sourcetype	Source
Osquery Results	Other	`'osquery:results'`	`'osquery'`

Macros Used

Name	Value
security_content_ctime	`convert timeformat="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" ctime($field$)`
macos_gatekeeper_bypass_filter	`search *`

macos_gatekeeper_bypass_filter is an empty macro by default. It allows the user to filter out any results (false positives) without editing the SPL.

Annotations

- MITRE ATT&CK

+ Kill Chain Phases

+ NIST

+ CIS

- Threat Actors

ID	Technique	Tactic
T1553.001	Gatekeeper Bypass	Defense Evasion

Exploitation

DE.AE

CIS 10

Default Configuration

This detection is configured by default in Splunk Enterprise Security to run with the following settings:

Setting	Value
Disabled	true
Cron Schedule	`0 * * * *`
Earliest Time	`-70m@m`
Latest Time	`-10m@m`
Schedule Window	`auto`
Creates Risk Event	True

This configuration file applies to all detections of type anomaly. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting.

Implementation

This detection uses osquery and endpoint security on MacOS. Follow the link in references, which describes how to setup process auditing in MacOS with endpoint security and osquery. Also the TA-OSquery must be deployed across your indexers and universal forwarders in order to have the osquery data populate the data models.

Known False Positives

Administrators or power users may need to disable Gatekeeper to install unsigned tools.

Associated Analytic Story

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

Attempt to bypass gatekeeper protections on $dest$ by $user$ via $process$

Risk Object	Risk Object Type	Risk Score	Threat Objects
dest	system	20	process
user	user	20	process

References

Detection Testing

Test Type	Status	Dataset	Source	Sourcetype
Validation	✅ Passing	N/A	N/A	N/A
Unit	✅ Passing	Dataset	`osquery`	`osquery:results`
Integration	✅ Passing	Dataset	`osquery`	`osquery:results`

Replay any dataset to Splunk Enterprise by using our replay.py tool or the UI. Alternatively you can replay a dataset into a Splunk Attack Range

Source: GitHub | Version: 2