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- Boot or Logon Autostart Execution
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Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Re-opened Applications
Other sub-techniques of Boot or Logon Autostart Execution (12)
Adversaries may modify plist files to automatically run an application when a user logs in. Starting in Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), users can specify certain applications to be re-opened when a user logs into their machine after reboot. While this is usually done via a Graphical User Interface (GUI) on an app-by-app basis, there are property list files (plist) that contain this information as well located at ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist
and ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.loginwindow.* .plist
.
An adversary can modify one of these files directly to include a link to their malicious executable to provide a persistence mechanism each time the user reboots their machine [1].
Mitigations
Mitigation | Description |
---|---|
Disable or Remove Feature or Program |
This feature can be disabled entirely with the following terminal command: |
User Training |
Holding the Shift key while logging in prevents apps from opening automatically. [2] |
Detection
Monitoring the specific plist files associated with reopening applications can indicate when an application has registered itself to be reopened.