Malicious Telegram Update LaunchDaemon Persistence on macOS

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Defense Evasion

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1543.004Launch Daemon
Priv Esc
- T1543.004Launch Daemon
Defense Evasion
- T1647Plist File Modification
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects creation of a LaunchDaemon property list masquerading as a Telegram updater such as com.telegram2.update.agent.plist, a persistence mechanism used by BlueNoroff as analyzed by Huntress. Attackers install a LaunchDaemon with a trustworthy-sounding label to run their implant at boot. A LaunchDaemon impersonating a Telegram update service is a strong macOS persistence indicator.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1543.004 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious COOKIE SPIDER LaunchDaemon Persistence via com.finder.helper Property List (via file_event)

LaunchAgent or LaunchDaemon Persistence File Creation on macOS (via file_event)

Malicious Mini Shai-Hulud gh-token-monitor Persistence Service (via file_event)

Suspicious LaunchAgent or LaunchDaemon Load via launchctl

Malicious macOS LaunchDaemon Persistence Masquerading as Finder Helper

Suspicious LaunchDaemon Load via launchctl

Suspicious macOS LaunchAgent or LaunchDaemon Plist Creation

macOS File Persistence from Atomic MacOS Stealer (helper file and LaunchDaemon plist)

macOS launchctl Execution of Launch Agent/Daemon

Malicious Telegram Update LaunchDaemon Persistence on macOS

Pivot detection · T1543.004 · 9 related

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

Full detection rule

Unlock this rule to view and copy it

The detection logic is included with a plan. Everything else — context, mappings and implementation details — stays free on this page.

Sign in for 3 free unlocks

Signing in gives you 3 unlocks to spend on any rule in the library. No card, and they do not expire.

Also included

Unlocked rules convert on this page — to Splunk SPL or Splunk — Raw Index SPL or Microsoft Sentinel KQL or Microsoft Sentinel ASIM ASIM KQL or Microsoft Defender XDR KQL or Elastic Security KQL or Elastic Security Lucene or Elastic Security ES|QL or CrowdStrike Falcon CQL or SentinelOne PowerQuery or Palo Alto Cortex XDR XQL or Carbon Black Cloud Platform Search or Carbon Black EDR Process Search or Google Security Operations UDM Search or IBM QRadar AQL or Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM Rules expression or Rapid7 InsightIDR LEQL or Graylog Search or OpenSearch Lucene or OpenSearch PPL PPL or Grafana Loki LogQL or SQLite SQL or Zircolite SQLite — with the log-source profile the engine picked, the field map it used, and everything it could not express. Converting a rule you have unlocked costs no further credit.

See it run on a free rule →Convert your own rule →