Boot or Logon Initialization Scripts: Startup Items T1037.005

Tactics: Persistence, Privilege Escalation

Adversaries may use startup items automatically executed at boot initialization to establish persistence. Startup items execute during the final phase of the boot process and contain shell scripts or other executable files along with configuration information used by the system to determine the execution order for all startup items.

Events covered

1 catalog event is tagged with this technique by at least one rule.

ProviderEventTitle
ESFcreateFile or Directory Create (NOTIFY)

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 2 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.

Fields filtered most (4 distinct)

The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.

FieldRulesHowSample values
TargetFilename2ends_with 1, starts_with 1, wildcard 1.plist, /library/startupitems/, /library/startupitems/*/startupparameters.plist, /system/library/startupitems, /system/library/startupitems/*/startupparameters.plist
event.type1ne 1deletion
file.name1eq 1StartupParameters.plist
host.os.type1eq 1

Top indicator values (7 distinct)

Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
TargetFilenameends_with
.plist
13
TargetFilenamestarts_with
/library/startupitems/
1
TargetFilenamestarts_with
/system/library/startupitems
1
TargetFilenamewildcard
/library/startupitems/*/startupparameters.plist
1
TargetFilenamewildcard
/system/library/startupitems/*/startupparameters.plist
1
event.typene
deletion
128
file.nameeq
StartupParameters.plist
1

Exclusions (2 distinct)

Field/operator/value combinations excluded by rules under this technique (top-level not() clauses), sorted by how many rules exclude each. These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that exclude it.

FieldKindValueRules excluding
process.code_signature.signing_ideq
com.apple.shove
1
process.code_signature.trustedeq
true
1

Rules under this technique

Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.

Platform (all)
Domain (all)

Sigma 1 rule

Elastic 1 rule