TMA-MACOS-3.1
Ensure Security Auditing Is Enabled
HighLevel 1Automatedmacos
Description
macOS's audit facility, auditd, receives notifications from the kernel when certain system calls, such as open, fork, and exit, are made. These notifications are captured and written to an audit log. Apple has deprecated auditd as of macOS 11.0 Big Sur. In macOS 14.0 Sonoma it is no longer enabled by default and it is suggested to use an application that integrates with the EndpointSecurity API.
How it is checked
Audit method: Shell command
shell
out=$(/bin/launchctl list 2>/dev/null) || exit 1
printf '%s\n' "$out" | /usr/bin/grep -qi com.apple.auditd && echo compliant- Expected output
compliant
How it is fixed
Fix method: Guidance or infrastructure patch
Terminal: sudo /bin/launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.auditd.plist ; sudo /bin/cp /etc/security/audit_control.example /etc/security/audit_control.
Properties
- Operating systems
- macos-26
- Tags
- macoslogging-auditing
- Reference
- CIS Apple macOS 26 Tahoe Benchmark v1.1.0 - 3.1 Ensure Security Auditing Is Enabled
Check this host
Run this on a machine you are allowed to audit. The scan is read-only.
shell
tmaegis scan --target macos