T1555.001: Keychain
Adversaries may acquire credentials from Keychain. Keychain (or Keychain Services) is the macOS credential management system that stores account names, passwords, private keys, certificates, sensitive application data, payment data, and secure notes. There are three types of Keychains: Login Keychain, System Keychain, and Local Items (iCloud) Keychain. The default Keychain is the Login Keychain, which stores user passwords and information. The System Keychain stores items accessed by the operating system, such as items shared among users on a host. The Local Items (iCloud) Keychain is used for items synced with Apple’s iCloud service.
Keychains can be viewed and edited through the Keychain Access application or using the command-line utility security
. Keychain files are located in ~/Library/Keychains/
, /Library/Keychains/
, and /Network/Library/Keychains/
.
Adversaries may gather user credentials from Keychain storage/memory. For example, the command security dump-keychain –d
will dump all Login Keychain credentials from ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db
. Adversaries may also directly read Login Keychain credentials from the ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
file. Both methods require a password, where the default password for the Login Keychain is the current user’s password to login to the macOS host.
Positive Technologies products that cover the technique
MaxPatrol SIEM knowledge base
hacking_tools: PT-CR-758: Lazagne_Usage: Use of the LaZagne tool to dump credentials is detected
Detection
ID | DS0022 | Data source and component | File: File Access | Description | Monitor for Keychain files being accessed that may be related to malicious credential collection. |
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ID | DS0009 | Data source and component | Process: Process Creation | Description | Monitor processes spawned by command line utilities to manipulate keychains directly, such as |
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ID | DS0009 | Data source and component | Process: OS API Execution | Description | Monitor for Keychain Services API calls, specifically legacy extensions such as |
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ID | DS0017 | Data source and component | Command: Command Execution | Description | Monitor executed commands with arguments that may be used to collect Keychain data from a system to acquire credentials. |
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Mitigation
ID | M1027 | Name | Password Policies | Description | The password for the user's login keychain can be changed from the user's login password. This increases the complexity for an adversary because they need to know an additional password. |
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