System Services: Launchctl T1569.001

Tactic: Execution

Adversaries may abuse launchctl to execute commands or programs. Launchctl interfaces with launchd, the service management framework for macOS. Launchctl supports taking subcommands on the command-line, interactively, or even redirected from standard input.

Events covered

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

ProviderEventTitle
ESFexecProcess Execution (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 (7 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
CommandLine1contains 1load, start, submit
EventType1eq 1launch_daemon
Image1ends_with 1/launchctl
event.type1in 1process_started, start
host.os.type1eq 1
process.args1eq 1load
process_name1eq 1launchctl

Top indicator values (9 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
CommandLinecontains
load
1
CommandLinecontains
start
113
CommandLinecontains
submit
1
EventTypeeq
launch_daemon
13
Imageends_with
/launchctl
12
event.typein
process_started
140
event.typein
start
142
process.argseq
load
1
process_nameeq
launchctl
12

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