Elastic Endpoint self-protection features

[preview] This functionality is in technical preview and may be changed or removed in a future release. Elastic will work to fix any issues, but features in technical preview are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features.

Elastic Endpoint, the installed component that performs Elastic Defend’s threat monitoring and prevention, protects itself against users and attackers that may try to interfere with its functionality. Protection features are consistently enhanced to prevent attackers who may attempt to use newer, more sophisticated tactics to interfere with the Elastic Endpoint. Self-protection is enabled by default when Elastic Endpoint installs on supported platforms, listed below.

Self-protection is enabled on the following 64-bit Windows versions:

Windows 8.1
Windows 10
Windows 11
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2022

Self-protection is also enabled on the following macOS versions:

macOS 10.15 (Catalina)
macOS 11 (Big Sur)
macOS 12 (Monterey)

Other Windows and macOS variants (and all Linux distributions) do not have self-protection.

Self-protection defines the following permissions:

Users — even Administrator/root — cannot delete Elastic Endpoint files (located at c:\Program Files\Elastic\Endpoint on Windows, and /Library/Elastic/Endpoint on macOS).
Users cannot terminate the Elastic Endpoint program or service.
Administrator/root users can read Elastic Endpoint’s files. On Windows, the easiest way to read Elastic Endpoint files is to start an Administrator cmd.exe prompt. On macOS, an Administrator can use the sudo command.
Administrator/root users can stop the Elastic Agent’s service. On Windows, run the sc stop "Elastic Agent" command. On macOS, run the sudo launchctl stop elastic-agent command.

« Allowlist Elastic Endpoint in third-party antivirus apps Elastic Endpoint command reference »