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</details>
## MacOS Process Abuse
MacOS, like any other operating system, provides a variety of methods and mechanisms for **processes to interact, communicate, and share data**. While these techniques are essential for efficient system functioning, they can also be abused by threat actors to **perform malicious activities**.
### Library Injection
Library Injection is a technique wherein an attacker **forces a process to load a malicious library**. Once injected, the library runs in the context of the target process, providing the attacker with the same permissions and access as the process.
Function Hooking involves **intercepting function calls** or messages within a software code. By hooking functions, an attacker can **modify the behavior** of a process, observe sensitive data, or even gain control over the execution flow.
Inter Process Communication (IPC) refers to different methods by which separate processes **share and exchange data**. While IPC is fundamental for many legitimate applications, it can also be misused to subvert process isolation, leak sensitive information, or perform unauthorized actions.
It's possible to inject code into .Net applications by **abusing the .Net debugging functionality** (not protected by macOS protections such as runtime hardening).
[**Shield**](https://theevilbit.github.io/shield/) ([**Github**](https://github.com/theevilbit/Shield)) is an open source application that can **detect and block process injection** actions:
* Using **Environmental Variables**: It will monitor the presence of any of the following environmental variables: **`DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES`**, **`CFNETWORK_LIBRARY_PATH`**, **`RAWCAMERA_BUNDLE_PATH`** and **`ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE`**
* Using **`task_for_pid`** calls: To find when one process wants to get the **task port of another** which allows to inject code in the process.
* **Electron apps params**: Someone can use **`--inspect`**, **`--inspect-brk`** and **`--remote-debugging-port`** command line argument to start an Electron app in debugging mode, and thus inject code to it.
* Using **symlinks** or **hardlinks**: Typically the most common abuse is to **place a link with our user privileges**, and **point it to a higher privilege** location. The detection is very simple for both hardlink and symlinks. If the process creating the link has a **different privilege level** than the target file, we create an **alert**. Unfortunately in the case of symlinks blocking is not possible, as we don’t have information about the destination of the link prior creation. This is a limitation of Apple’s EndpointSecuriy framework.
In [**this blog post**](https://knight.sc/reverse%20engineering/2019/04/15/detecting-task-modifications.html) you can find how it's possible to use the function **`task_name_for_pid`** to get information about other **processes injecting code in a process** and then getting information about that other process.
Note that to call that function you need to be **the same uid** as the one running the process or **root** (and it returns info about the process, not a way to inject code).
* Do you work in a **cybersecurity company**? Do you want to see your **company advertised in HackTricks**? or do you want to have access to the **latest version of the PEASS or download HackTricks in PDF**? Check the [**SUBSCRIPTION PLANS**](https://github.com/sponsors/carlospolop)!
* Discover [**The PEASS Family**](https://opensea.io/collection/the-peass-family), our collection of exclusive [**NFTs**](https://opensea.io/collection/the-peass-family)
* Get the [**official PEASS & HackTricks swag**](https://peass.creator-spring.com)
* **Join the** [**💬**](https://emojipedia.org/speech-balloon/) [**Discord group**](https://discord.gg/hRep4RUj7f) or the [**telegram group**](https://t.me/peass) or **follow** me on **Twitter** [**🐦**](https://github.com/carlospolop/hacktricks/tree/7af18b62b3bdc423e11444677a6a73d4043511e9/\[https:/emojipedia.org/bird/README.md)[**@carlospolopm**](https://twitter.com/hacktricks\_live)**.**
* **Share your hacking tricks by submitting PRs to the** [**hacktricks repo**](https://github.com/carlospolop/hacktricks) **and** [**hacktricks-cloud repo**](https://github.com/carlospolop/hacktricks-cloud).
