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Processes Tapping Keyboard Events

The following analytic detects processes on macOS systems that are tapping keyboard events, potentially monitoring all keystrokes made by a user. It leverages data from osquery results within the Alerts data model,…

Description

The following analytic detects processes on macOS systems that are tapping keyboard events, potentially monitoring all keystrokes made by a user. It leverages data from osquery results within the Alerts data model, focusing on specific process names and command lines. This activity is significant as it is a common technique used by Remote Access Trojans (RATs) to log keystrokes, posing a serious security risk. If confirmed malicious, this could lead to unauthorized access to sensitive information, including passwords and personal data, compromising the integrity and confidentiality of the system.

Detection logic

Detection requirements

Log source category
osquery_results

Known benign triggers

  • There might be some false positives as keyboard event taps are used by processes like Siri and Zoom video chat, for some good examples of processes to exclude please see [this](https://github.com/facebook/osquery/pull/5345#issuecomment-454639161) comment.

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