Detection: MacOS Keychains Dumped

Updated Date: 2026-04-28 ID: dcb45a09-5e6f-441e-b2f8-cbbf923e36d9 Author: Raven Tait, Jamie Windley, Splunk Type: TTP Product: Splunk Enterprise Security

Description

Detects command-line attempts to access or dump macOS Keychain data using native utilities or direct file access. This includes credential dumping via the security utility (e.g. dump-keychain -d), bulk certificate export using security find-certificate, and direct file copying of Keychain database files using utilities such as cat. Keychain files are located in ~/Library/Keychains/, /Library/Keychains/, and /Network/Library/Keychains/. This technique is commonly associated with post-exploitation credential harvesting, where an attacker with local access seeks to escalate privileges or move laterally by obtaining stored credentials for applications, Wi-Fi networks, system services, and certificates.

Search

 1
 2| tstats `security_content_summariesonly`
 3  count min(_time) as firstTime
 4        max(_time) as lastTime
 5        values(Processes.parent_process) AS parent_process
 6        values(Processes.parent_process_exec) AS parent_process_exec
 7        values(Processes.parent_process_id) AS parent_process_id
 8        values(Processes.parent_process_name) AS parent_process_name
 9        values(Processes.parent_process_path) AS parent_process_path
10
11FROM datamodel=Endpoint.Processes WHERE
12(
13    Processes.process_path="/usr/bin/security"
14    AND
15    (
16        (
17            Processes.process="*dump-keychain*"
18            Processes.process="*-d*"
19        )
20        OR
21        (
22            Processes.process="*find-certificate*"
23            Processes.process="*-p*"
24        )
25    )
26)
27OR
28Processes.process="*keychaindump*"
29OR
30(
31    Processes.process_name IN (
32        "cat",
33        "cp",
34        "dd",
35        "mv"
36    )
37    Processes.process="*Library/Keychains/*"
38    Processes.process="*.keychain*"
39)
40by Processes.action Processes.dest Processes.process Processes.process_hash
41Processes.process_id Processes.process_name Processes.process_path
42Processes.user Processes.vendor_product
43
44
45| `drop_dm_object_name(Processes)`
46
47| `security_content_ctime(firstTime)`
48
49| `security_content_ctime(lastTime)`
50
51| `macos_keychains_dumped_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_keychains_dumped_filter	`search *`

macos_keychains_dumped_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
T1555.001	Keychain	Credential Access

Exploitation

DE.CM

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 Notable	Yes
Rule Title	`%name%`
Rule Description	`%description%`
Notable Event Fields	user, dest
Creates Risk Event	True

This configuration file applies to all detections of type TTP. These detections will use Risk Based Alerting and generate Notable Events.

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 accessing keychain files for troubleshooting or endpoint management.

Associated Analytic Story

MacOS Privilege Escalation

Risk Based Analytics (RBA)

Risk Message:

Keychains dumped on $dest$ by $user$ via $process$

Risk Object	Risk Object Type	Risk Score	Threat Objects
user	user	50	No Threat Objects
dest	system	50	No Threat Objects

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: 3