MITRE ATT&CKsub-technique

T1546.006 LC_LOAD_DYLIB Addition

Published 2020-01-24 Modified 2025-10-24 Official page ↗
Domain
enterprise
Tactics
Privilege Escalation, Persistence
Platforms
macOS
Version
1.1
Created
2020-01-24

Description

Adversaries may establish persistence by executing malicious content triggered by the execution of tainted binaries. Mach-O binaries have a series of headers that are used to perform certain operations when a binary is loaded. The LC_LOAD_DYLIB header in a Mach-O binary tells macOS and OS X which dynamic libraries (dylibs) to load during execution time. These can be added ad-hoc to the compiled binary as long as adjustments are made to the rest of the fields and dependencies. There are tools available to perform these changes. Adversaries may modify Mach-O binary headers to load and execute malicious dylibs every time the binary is executed. Although any changes will invalidate digital signatures on binaries because the binary is being modified, this can be remediated by simply removing the LC_CODE_SIGNATURE command from the binary so that the signature isn’t checked at load time.

Related

Subtechnique of · MITRE ATT&CK (1)

  • T1546 Event Triggered Execution technique

Tactic · MITRE ATT&CK (2)

  • TA0003 Persistence tactic
  • TA0004 Privilege Escalation tactic

Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · mitigates (3)

  • M1038 Execution Prevention mitigation
  • M1045 Code Signing mitigation
  • M1047 Audit mitigation

Referenced by Compliance · mitigates (14)

  • CIS-2.6 Allowlist Authorized Libraries CIS Safeguard v8.1
  • NIST-CM-2 Baseline Configuration NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-CM-6 Configuration Settings NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-CM-7 Least Functionality NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-CM-8 System Component Inventory NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-IA-9 Service Identification and Authentication NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SI-10 Information Input Validation NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SI-2 Flaw Remediation NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SI-3 Malicious Code Protection NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SI-4 System Monitoring NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SI-7 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SR-11 Component Authenticity NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SR-4 Provenance NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SR-5 Acquisition Strategies, Tools, and Methods NIST 800-53 control

References