Virtual Private Network Connection Attempt

Identifies the execution of macOS built-in commands to connect to an existing Virtual Private Network (VPN). Adversaries may use VPN connections to laterally move and control remote systems on a network.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

Severity: low

Risk score: 21

Runs every: 5m

Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

Tags:

Version: 5

Rule authors:

Rule license: Elastic License v2

## Setup

If enabling an EQL rule on a non-elastic-agent index (such as beats) for versions <8.2, events will not define `event.ingested` and default fallback for EQL rules was not added until 8.2, so you will need to add a custom pipeline to populate `event.ingested` to @timestamp for this rule to work.

process where event.type in ("start", "process_started") and
  (
    (process.name : "networksetup" and process.args : "-connectpppoeservice") or
    (process.name : "scutil" and process.args : "--nc" and process.args : "start") or
    (process.name : "osascript" and process.command_line : "osascript*set VPN to service*")
  )