README.md

ALM – Application Launch Monitor

ALM is a small Objective-C NSWorkspace listener combined with a (bigger) shell script; it extends macOS Gatekeeper protection by monitoring and intercepting every application launch, while re-evaluating the application's security and integrity.

ALM is still in beta, so there will surely be some errors or bugs, and it will have to undergo a lot of testing before any final release. Testing is currently done on macOS High Sierra (10.13.6), and will continue on Mojave later in 2018.

Background: Reed T. Talk at Virus Bulletin 2018. Malwarebytes. 3 October 2018. Montreal. In: Seals T. 2018. "Virus Bulletin 2018: macOS Flaw Allows Attackers to Hijack Installed Apps". Threatpost: Security News Service. 3 October 2018. Woburn.

The way Apple handles [the Gatekeeper] process has a hole in it. Apps are essentially quarantined when they're downloaded by a Mac user; any executable is given an initial caution flag. The system then checks the code signature, and makes sure the application is not a known piece of malware. If it passes, the app is given clearance on the machine as a piece of trusted software. That's where the issue lies. At that point, macOS stops checking that application, once the quarantine flag is wiped out. […] That means that malefactors can infect almost any application already running on the machine […].

As an alternative, you might also want to take a look at the beta version of Google's upcoming Santa security software. I haven't yet tested it, but it looks very promising.

To initially scan application bundles after download or installation, you can also use the separate wys shell script with additional functionality like validations of checksums and GPG signatures, embedded anti-malware scans using clamav/ClamXAV and VirusTotal, support for installer package signatures, quarantine checks etc.

ALM Features

• The listener interrupts every application launch with SIGSTOP, and sends the application info (bundle ID, filepath, application name, and process ID) to the shell script.
• The shell script re-evaluates the application bundle, i.a. by
  • verifying the code signature integrity (deep scan with codesign),
  • comparing the SHA-256 hashes of the main executable,
  • running a qualitative assessment in relation to the whitelist status (see below),
  • checking for unsigned or ad-hoc-signed bundles or bundles signed with old Apple developer certificates,
  • specifically checking for anchor apple in the signature requirements,
  • detecting when the subject key identifier (SKID) embedded in the code signing certificate has changed,
  • validating the code signing certificate itself (with security), not only the bundle's code signature,
  • comparing the bundle ID in the Info.plist with those in the code signing certificate (signature),
  • checking for Team IDs in the code signature, and
  • detecting when the filepath or application name has changed.
• ALM auto-whitelists applications that pass all tests (setting 1); if there are errors, a prompt is displayed, and the user has to choose how to proceed; the options are:
  • whitelist the application manually (setting 2), e.g. for applications that are unsigned like VirtualC64 or self-signed like Skim (see below; screengrabs);
  • launch once or abort launch (setting 0 = not whitelisted);
  • see below for the blacklisting option.
• For later comparison ALM saves the following information in an sqlite database: the bundle ID in the Info.plist, the absolute filepath, the application name, the Team ID from the code signature, the code signing anchor, the code signing certificate's subject key identifier, the bundle ID embedded in the code signature, the certificate's team identifier, the SHA-256 hash of the main executable, the whitelist status, the codesign validation results, and the certificate's security validation results.
• You can blacklist applications, or remove applications from the ALM database, by running the almonwatch shell script directly with options (see below).
• You can perform an additional scan independent of ALM: if you copy a script called run into /Library/Application\ Support/ALM/bin, ALM will execute it while passing the original NSWorkspace notification (including process ID) plus additional arguments: (a) the whitelisting status, and (b): hash change information (modified/updated executable).

Installation

• Clone (or download) repository & cd into repo
• gcc -Wall almon.m -o almon -lobjc -framework Cocoa
  • alternative: use prebuilt CLI almon (built with Xcode 10 on macOS 10.13.6)
• cp almon /usr/local/bin/almon && sudo chown root:wheel /usr/local/bin/almon && sudo chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/almon
• cp almonwatch /usr/local/bin/almonwatch && sudo chown root:wheel /usr/local/bin/almonwatch && sudo chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/almonwatch
• cp almhelper /usr/local/bin/almhelper && sudo chown root:wheel /usr/local/bin/almhelper && sudo chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/almhelper
• sudo cp local.lcars.ALM.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.lcars.ALM.plist
• sudo cp local.lcars.ALMHelper.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.lcars.ALMHelper.plist
• sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.lcars.ALM.plist
• sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.lcars.ALMHelper.plist
• sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.lcars.ALM.plist
• sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.lcars.ALMHelper.plist (this will automatically start ALM)

Please note that when building almon with Xcode 10 or the associated Developer Tools on High Sierra, you will probably run into ld warnings; you can safely ignore them.

Notes

• ALM does not (yet?) work for background applications, e.g. menu bar apps.
• ALM runs as a LaunchAgent owned by root; if you chown the associated files as root:wheel (see above), the daemon, its files, and the sqlite database it creates in /Library/Application\ Support/ALM are safe against tampering without root escalation.
• On a modern Mac with fast processors and SSDs, you will only notice a small delay in application launches when dealing with larger bundles, e.g. Electron "apps"; on older Macs the eval scans will take a little longer.
  • Scans of extremely large bundles will take too long even on modern Macs, so ALM is currently skipping codesign re-evaluation for bundles larger than 3.5 GB (physical size), if the executable hasn't been modified/updated.
• The ALM database only ever stores the current version of an application; information on previous versions will be overwritten automatically; you can look at the contents of the database with tools like DB Browser for SQLite.
• If you have two copies of the same application on your volume, you might run into ALM error prompts; please change one of the two applications' bundle IDs to avoid confusion.
• Since ALM runs as root, it will not use the local user's alert sound, but you can change the global alert sound by executing: sudo defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.sound.beep.sound /Users/<UserName>/Library/Sounds/<SoundFile>

Command Line Options

Remove or blacklist an application (only one at a time) from (in) the ALM database by executing either

• sudo almonwatch [remove | blacklist] name <Application Name>, or
• sudo almonwatch [remove | blacklist] id <Application Bundle ID>, or
• sudo almonwatch [remove | blacklist] path <Path to Application>

The remove option actually removes the whole database entry for the given application, while the blacklist option sets the whitelist key to X, meaning that any launch of a blacklisted app will be terminated (gracefully with osascript first before running the kill command as a fallback). You cannot re-whitelist a blacklisted application: instead you need to remove its entry from the database, and launch it again for re-evaluation.

To delete all entries from the database, just execute sudo rm -f /Library/Application\ Support/ALM/alm.db; an empty database will be recreated at the next scan.

Uninstall

• sudo launchctl stop local.lcars.ALMHelper && sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.lcars.ALMHelper.plist
• sudo launchctl stop local.lcars.ALM && sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.lcars.ALM.plist
• sudo killall almon
• sudo killall almonwatch
• sudo killall almhelper
• sudo rm -f /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.lcars.ALMHelper.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.lcars.ALM.plist /usr/local/bin/almon /usr/local/bin/almonwatch /usr/local/bin/almhelper
• sudo rm -rf /Library/Application\ Support/ALM

Beta status

• still needs general and extensive real-world testing, lots of testing
• support for background applications etc. (if possible/feasible)
• find a solution for super-large bundles

Screengrabs