Detection: MacOS Account Created

Updated Date: 2026-04-15 ID: 491004ae-694f-453e-b1e0-fc1e65daeea1 Author: Raven Tait, Splunk Type: Anomaly Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

The following analytic detects the creation of a new local user account on a MacOS system. It leverages osquery logs to identify this activity. Monitoring the creation of local accounts is crucial for a SOC as it can indicate unauthorized access or lateral movement within the network. If confirmed malicious, this activity could allow an attacker to establish persistence, escalate privileges, or gain unauthorized access to sensitive systems and data.

Search

 1
 2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly`
 3  count min(_time) as firstTime
 4        max(_time) as lastTime
 5from datamodel=Endpoint.Processes where
 6
 7(
 8    Processes.process = "*sysadminctl"
 9    Processes.process = "*-addUser*"
10)
11OR
12(
13    Processes.process = "*createhomedir*"
14    Processes.process = "*-u*"
15)
16OR
17(
18    Processes.process = "*dseditgroup*"
19    Processes.process IN (
20        "*edit*",
21        "*-a*"
22        )
23)
24OR
25(
26    Processes.process = "*dscl*"
27    Processes.process = "*-create*"
28)
29
30by Processes.dest Processes.original_file_name Processes.parent_process_id
31   Processes.process Processes.process_exec Processes.process_guid
32   Processes.process_hash Processes.process_id
33   Processes.process_current_directory Processes.process_name
34   Processes.process_path Processes.user Processes.user_id
35   Processes.vendor_product
36
37
38| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)`
39
40| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
41
42| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
43
44| `macos_account_created_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_account_created_filter	`search *`

macos_account_created_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
T1136	Create Account	Persistence

Installation

DE.AE

CIS 10

Salt Typhoon

Scattered Spider

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

Creating new accounts after initial endpoint management should be rare in most environments. Investigate and tune as needed.

Associated Analytic Story

MacOS Persistence Techniques

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

New local account created 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