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