This technique is deprecated due to the inaccurate usage. The report cited did not provide technical detail as to how the malware interacted directly with launchd rather than going through known services. Other system services are used to interact with launchd rather than launchd being used by itself.
Adversaries may abuse the Launchd daemon to perform task scheduling for initial or recurring execution of malicious code. The launchd daemon, native to macOS, is responsible for loading and maintaining services within the operating system. This process loads the parameters for each launch-on-demand system-level daemon from the property list (plist) files found in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons and /Library/LaunchDaemons[1]. These LaunchDaemons have property list files which point to the executables that will be launched[2].
An adversary may use the launchd daemon in macOS environments to schedule new executables to run at system startup or on a scheduled basis for persistence. launchd can also be abused to run a process under the context of a specified account. Daemons, such as launchd, run with the permissions of the root user account, and will operate regardless of which user account is logged in.
References
- Apple. (n.d.). Creating Launch Daemons and Agents. Retrieved July 10, 2017.
- Patrick Wardle. (2014, September). Methods of Malware Persistence on Mac OS X. Retrieved July 5, 2017.
Kapcsolt feladatok
| Kapcsolattípus | Feladat |
|---|---|
| is related to | Techniques |
- MITREATTACK -
EN: MITRE ATT&CK®, https://attack.mitre.org/. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. License: The MITRE Corporation (MITRE) hereby grants you a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use ATT&CK® for research, development, and commercial purposes. Any copy you make for such purposes is authorized provided that you reproduce MITRE's copyright designation and this license in any such copy. See the Terms of Use for the disclaimers. ATT&CK® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. Converted into the GRCA format.
DE: MITRE ATT&CK®, https://attack.mitre.org/. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE erlaubt die Nutzung für Forschung, Entwicklung und kommerzielle Zwecke, wenn jede Kopie den Urheberrechtsvermerk und die Lizenz enthält; maßgeblich ist der englische Wortlaut der Lizenz oben und die Terms of Use mit den Haftungsausschlüssen. ATT&CK® ist eine eingetragene Marke der MITRE Corporation. In das GRCA-Format umgewandelt.