PoisonApple : macOS Persistence Tool

PoisonApple is a command-line tool to perform various persistence mechanism techniques on macOS. This tool was designed to be used by threat hunters for cyber threat emulation purposes.

Install

• Do it up:

$ pip3 install poisonapple –user

Note: PoisonApple was written & tested using Python 3.9, it should work using Python 3.6+

Important Notes!

• PoisonApple will make modifications to your macOS system, it’s advised to only use PoisonApple on a virtual machine. Although any persistence mechanism technique added using this tool can also be easily removed (-r), please use with caution!
• Be advised: This tool will likely cause common AV / EDR / other macOS security products to generate alerts.
• To understand how any of these techniques work in-depth please see The Art of Mac Malware, Volume 1: Analysis – Chapter 0x2: Persistence by Patrick Wardle of Objective-See. It’s a fantastic resource.

Usage

See PoisonApple switch options (–help):

$ poisonapple –help
usage: poisonapple [-h] [-l] [-t TECHNIQUE] [-n NAME] [-c COMMAND] [-r]

Command-line tool to perform various persistence mechanism techniques on macOS.

Optional Arguments:
-h, –help show this help message and exit
-l, –list list available persistence mechanism techniques
-t TECHNIQUE, –technique TECHNIQUE
persistence mechanism technique to use
-n NAME, –name NAME name for the file or label used for persistence
-c COMMAND, –command COMMAND
command(s) to execute for persistence
-r, –remove remove persistence mechanism

• List of available techniques:

+——————–+
| AtJob |
+——————–+
| Bashrc |
+——————–+
| Cron |
+——————–+
| CronRoot |
+——————–+
| Emond |
+——————–+
| LaunchAgent |
+——————–+
| LaunchAgentUser |
+——————–+
| LaunchDaemon |
+——————–+
| LoginHook |
+——————–+
| LoginHookUser |
+——————–+
| LoginItem |
+——————–+
| LogoutHook |
+——————–+
| LogoutHookUser |
+——————–+
| Periodic |
+——————–+
| Reopen |
+——————–+
| Zshrc |
+——————–+

• Apply a persistence mechanism:

$ poisonapple -t LaunchAgentUser -n testing
[+] Success! The persistence mechanism action was successful: LaunchAgentUser

• If no command is specified (-c) a default trigger command will be used which writes to a file on the Desktop every time the persistence mechanism is triggered:

$ cat ~/Desktop/PoisonApple-LaunchAgentUser
Triggered @ Tue Mar 23 17:46:02 CDT 2021
Triggered @ Tue Mar 23 17:46:13 CDT 2021
Triggered @ Tue Mar 23 17:46:23 CDT 2021
Triggered @ Tue Mar 23 17:46:33 CDT 2021
Triggered @ Tue Mar 23 17:46:43 CDT 2021
Triggered @ Tue Mar 23 17:46:53 CDT 2021
Triggered @ Tue Mar 23 17:47:03 CDT 2021
Triggered @ Tue Mar 23 17:47:13 CDT 2021
Triggered @ Tue Mar 23 17:48:05 CDT 2021
Triggered @ Tue Mar 23 17:48:15 CDT 2021

• Remove a persistence mechanism:

$ poisonapple -t LaunchAgentUser -n testing -r
…

• Use a custom command:

$ poisonapple -t LaunchAgentUser -n foo -c “echo foo >> /Users/user/Desktop/foo”
…