Detect Emond in Microsoft Sentinel
Adversaries may gain persistence and elevate privileges by executing malicious content triggered by the Event Monitor Daemon (emond). Emond is a Launch Daemon on macOS that accepts events from various services, runs them through a simple rule engine, and takes action. The emond rules files are stored at /etc/emond.d/rules/ and rules are defined in plist format. Adversaries can write malicious event rules to these files to execute arbitrary code when a matching event occurs. Emond runs as root — any process or command triggered by an emond rule executes with root privileges, making this both a persistence and privilege escalation technique.
MITRE ATT&CK
- Tactic
- Privilege Escalation Persistence
- Technique
- T1546 Event Triggered Execution
- Sub-technique
- T1546.014 Emond
- Canonical reference
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1546/014/
KQL Detection Query
DeviceFileEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(24h)
| where DeviceOSPlatform has_any ("macOS", "Mac", "Darwin")
| where (
FolderPath has "/etc/emond.d/rules/"
or FolderPath has "/etc/emond.d/"
or (FileName endswith ".plist" and FolderPath has "emond")
)
| where ActionType in ("FileCreated", "FileModified")
| extend IsRulesDir = FolderPath has "/etc/emond.d/rules/"
| extend IsNewPlist = FileName endswith ".plist"
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, AccountName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath,
IsRulesDir, IsNewPlist,
InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine
| sort by Timestamp descDetects emond (Event Monitor Daemon) persistence by monitoring for file creation and modification in the /etc/emond.d/rules/ directory. Any plist file created or modified in this directory represents a new emond event rule that could execute arbitrary commands as root. Since emond runs as root, all triggered actions have root-level privileges. macOS-specific detection — filter to macOS endpoints only.
Data Sources
Required Tables
False Positives & Tuning
- macOS system software updates that modify or add emond rule files as part of OS configuration
- Enterprise macOS management tools (Jamf Pro, Munki) that deploy emond rules as part of system configuration management
- Security monitoring products that use emond for system event monitoring on macOS
- Legitimate IT operations that create emond rules for custom alerting or automation workflows
Other platforms for T1546.014
Testing Methodology
Validate this detection against 3 adversary techniques from Atomic Red Team. Each test below lists the behaviour to exercise and the telemetry you should expect to see. Executable commands and cleanup steps are available with Pro.
- Test 1Create Malicious Emond Rule for Startup Persistence
Expected signal: File creation event for /etc/emond.d/rules/argus_test.plist. Process creation for tee writing to the rules directory. On next startup or emond reload, emond spawns the touch command as root — file creation event for /tmp/emond_executed.
- Test 2Verify Emond Service Status
Expected signal: Process creation for launchctl and ls. Read-only — no modifications. Output shows emond service state and all existing rule files.
- Test 3Create Emond Authentication Event Rule
Expected signal: File creation event for /etc/emond.d/rules/argus_auth_test.plist. The authentication event trigger fires on user login, causing emond to spawn the touch command as root.
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