Malicious Sapphire Sleet LaunchDaemon Masquerading as Google WebKit Service (via file_event)

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1543.004Launch Daemon
Priv Esc
- T1543.004Launch Daemon
Defense Evasion
- T1036.005Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects creation of a LaunchDaemon property list named com.google.webkit.service.plist, a persistence artifact Sapphire Sleet plants on macOS while masquerading as a legitimate Google WebKit service. Adversaries install this daemon to survive reboots and maintain access after the initial lure compromise, so the appearance of this spoofed daemon name is a high-confidence sign of the implant.

Reporting behind it

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Malicious Sapphire Sleet LaunchDaemon Masquerading as Google WebKit Service (via file_event)

Pivot detection · T1036.005 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.

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