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Attempt to Enable the Root Account

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Attempt to Enable the Root Account

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Identifies attempts to enable the root account using the dsenableroot command. This command may be abused by adversaries for persistence, as the root account is disabled by default.

Rule type: query

Rule indices:

auditbeat-*
logs-endpoint.events.*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

Runs every: 5 minutes

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

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

https://ss64.com/osx/dsenableroot.html

Tags:

Elastic
Host
macOS
Threat Detection
Persistence

Version: 100 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.12.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 8.5.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

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event.category:process and event.type:(start or process_started) and
process.name:dsenableroot and not process.args:"-d"

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
Technique:
- Name: Valid Accounts
- ID: T1078
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1078/

Rule version history

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Version 100 (8.5.0 release)

Formatting only

Version 2 (8.4.0 release)

Formatting only

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