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ATT&CK Technique

Gatekeeper Bypass

T1144 · stealth
▤ Generate a SIEM detection for T1144 ◈ Vendor-native detections for T1144 ⚠ CVEs mapped to T1144 ♛ Hunt package for T1144 ◎ Check your coverage for T1144

In macOS and OS X, when applications or programs are downloaded from the internet, there is a special attribute set on the file called com.apple.quarantine. This attribute is read by Apple's Gatekeeper defense program at execution time and provides a prompt to the user to allow or deny execution. Apps loaded onto the system from USB flash drive, optical disk, external hard drive, or even from a drive shared over the local network won’t set this flag.

Additionally, other utilities or events like drive-by downloads don’t necessarily set it either. This completely bypasses the built-in Gatekeeper check. The presence of the quarantine flag can be checked by the xattr command xattr /path/to/MyApp.app for com.apple.quarantine.

Similarly, given sudo access or elevated permission, this attribute can be removed with xattr as well, sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/MyApp.app. In typical operation, a file will be downloaded from the internet and given a quarantine flag before being saved to disk. When the user tries to open the file or application, macOS’s gatekeeper will step in and check for the presence of this flag.

If it exists, then macOS will then prompt the user to confirmation that they want to run the program and will even provide the URL where the application came from. However, this is all based on the file being downloaded from a quarantine-savvy application.

macOS
▸ How to use this page - the detection-engineering loop
Attackers have goals (tactics - “get credentials”, “move laterally”) and techniques are the concrete methods they use to reach them. This page is one method - T1144 - broken into everything you need to catch it.
The loop this page is built for (this is the job):
  1. Understand the behaviour - read the description and the Atomic Tests to see exactly what the attacker does on a host or network.
  2. Find the telemetry - what data source would reveal it (process creation, registry, network flow, auth logs). Detection Coverage shows which surfaces already have a rule and which are blind.
  3. Get or write the detection - adapt ready logic (CAR Analytics, SIEM Detections, Falco, or Sigma via Generate a SIEM detection), or author your own.
  4. Test it - run an Atomic Test in a lab and confirm your rule actually fires. A detection you have not tested is a hope, not coverage.
  5. Deploy and tune - push it, then watch for false positives and adjust.
What each panel is for:
Atomic Testssafely reproduce the technique in a lab to validate that a detection fires. Detection Coveragewhich detection surfaces have a rule for this technique; none is a blind spot to close, or simply not applicable (YARA matches files, not network behaviour). CAR / SIEM / Falcoready-made detection logic (Splunk SPL, Elastic EQL, Sentinel KQL, Falco) you adapt to your own SIEM. Mitigationsreduce exposure so the technique is harder to use at all - prevent, not just detect. Actors / Attributionwho actually uses this, so you prioritise by your own threat model. Attack Path / LOTLwhat attackers do before and after this step, and the legitimate tools they abuse to do it.
Where this fits: you usually arrive here from a CVE (“which techniques does it enable”) and leave with a tested detection deployed. The buttons above jump straight to building one, the deployable rules, the CVEs that use T1144, and a hunt package.
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Detection Coverage

0/9 layers
Coverage across standard detection surfaces. Rows marked none have no rule of that type mapped. Some are real blind spots worth closing; others are simply not applicable to this technique (e.g. YARA matches malware files, not network behaviour).
Behavioral / log (Sigma) none
Analytics (MITRE CAR) none
Runtime / container (Falco) none
File / malware (YARA) none
Network (Suricata/Snort) none
Vuln scan (Nuclei) none
SIEM (Splunk ESCU) none
SIEM (Elastic) none
SIEM (Azure Sentinel) none
External lookups - second-class, for what we don’t hold ourselves
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