Detection focuses on adversaries placing or modifying malicious dylibs in locations searched by legitimate applications. From the defender’s perspective, observable patterns include unexpected creation or modification of dylib files in application bundle paths, unusual module loads by processes compared to historical baselines, and execution of applications loading dylibs from suspicious directories (e.g., /tmp, user-controlled paths). Correlation across file system changes, process execution, and module loads provides high-fidelity detection.
| Data Component | Name | Channel |
|---|---|---|
| Module Load (DC0016) | macos:unifiedlog | process execution events with dylib load activity |
| File Creation (DC0039) | macos:unifiedlog | create/modify dylib files in monitored directories |
| File Modification (DC0061) | macos:unifiedlog | replace existing dylibs |
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| MonitoredDirectories | Application bundle directories (e.g., /Applications/*/Contents/MacOS, /Library/Frameworks). Adversaries may use non-standard paths like /tmp. |
| BaselineDylibs | Historical record of dylibs typically loaded by applications. Deviations should be flagged. |
| CorrelationWindow | Timeframe to correlate dylib file modification with subsequent process execution and module loads. |