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Elastic Docs ›Elastic Security Solution [8.16] ›Detections and alerts ›Prebuilt rule reference

SoftwareUpdate Preferences Modification

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SoftwareUpdate Preferences Modification

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Identifies changes to the SoftwareUpdate preferences using the built-in defaults command. Adversaries may abuse this in an attempt to disable security updates.

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:

Tags:

  • Elastic
  • Host
  • macOS
  • Threat Detection
  • Defense Evasion

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

Potential false positives

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Authorized SoftwareUpdate Settings Changes

Rule query

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event.category:process and event.type:(start or process_started) and
process.name:defaults and process.args:(write and "-bool" and
(com.apple.SoftwareUpdate or
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist) and not (TRUE or
true))

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM

Rule version history

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Version 100 (8.5.0 release)

  • Updated query, changed from:

    event.category:process and event.type:(start or process_started) and
process.name:defaults and process.args:(write and "-bool" and
(com.apple.SoftwareUpdate or
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist) and not (TRUE or
true))
Version 2 (8.4.0 release)
  • Formatting only
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