OSXCollector Manual

OSXCollector is a forensic evidence collection & analysis toolkit for OSX.

Forensic Collection

The collection script runs on a potentially infected machine and outputs a JSON file that describes the target machine. OSXCollector gathers information from plists, SQLite databases and the local file system.

Forensic Analysis

Armed with the forensic collection, an analyst can answer the question like:

• Is this machine infected?
• How'd that malware get there?
• How can I prevent and detect further infection?

Yelp automates the analysis of most OSXCollector runs converting its output into an easily readable and actionable summary of just the suspicious stuff. Check out OSXCollector Output Filters project to learn how to make the most of the automated OSXCollector output analysis.

Performing Collection

osxcollector.py is a single Python file that runs without any dependencies on a standard OSX machine. This makes it really easy to run collection on any machine - no fussing with brew, pip, config files, or environment variables. Just copy the single file onto the machine and run it:

sudo osxcollector.py is all it takes.

$ sudo osxcollector.py
Wrote 35394 lines.
Output in osxcollect-2014_12_21-08_49_39.tar.gz

If you have just cloned the GitHub repository, osxcollector.py is inside osxcollector/ directory, so you need to run it as:

$ sudo osxcollector/osxcollector.py

IMPORTANT: please make sure that python command on your Mac OS X machine uses the default Python interpreter shipped with the system and is not overridden, e.g. by the Python version installed through brew. OSXCollector relies on a couple of native Python bindings for OS X libraries, which might be not available in other Python versions than the one originally installed on your system. Alternatively, you can run osxcollector.py explicitly specifying the Python version you would like to use:

$ sudo /usr/bin/python2.7 osxcollector/osxcollector.py

The JSON output of the collector, along with some helpful files like system logs, has been bundled into a .tar.gz for hand-off to an analyst.

osxcollector.py also has a lot of useful options to change how collection works:

• -i INCIDENT_PREFIX/--id=INCIDENT_PREFIX: Sets an identifier which is used as the prefix of the output file. The default value is osxcollect.

  $ sudo osxcollector.py -i IncontinentSealord
  Wrote 35394 lines.
  Output in IncontinentSealord-2014_12_21-08_49_39.tar.gz
  

  Get creative with incident names, it makes it easier to laugh through the pain.

• -p ROOTPATH/--path=ROOTPATH: Sets the path to the root of the filesystem to run collection on. The default value is /. This is great for running collection on the image of a disk.

  $ sudo osxcollector.py -p '/mnt/powned'
  

• -s SECTION/--section=SECTION: Runs only a portion of the full collection. Can be specified more than once. The full list of sections and subsections is:

  • version
  • system_info
  • kext
  • startup
    • launch_agents
    • scripting_additions
    • startup_items
    • login_items
  • applications
    • applications
    • install_history
  • quarantines
  • downloads
    • downloads
    • email_downloads
    • old_email_downloads
  • chrome
    • history
    • archived_history
    • cookies
    • login_data
    • top_sites
    • web_data
    • databases
    • local_storage
    • preferences
  • firefox
    • cookies
    • downloads
    • formhistory
    • history
    • signons
    • permissions
    • addons
    • extension
    • content_prefs
    • health_report
    • webapps_store
    • json_files
  • safari
    • downloads
    • history
    • extensions
    • databases
    • localstorage
    • extension_files
  • accounts
    • system_admins
    • system_users
    • social_accounts
    • recent_items
  • mail
  • full_hash

  $ sudo osxcollector.py -s 'startup' -s 'downloads'
  

• -c/--collect-cookies: Collect cookies' value. By default OSXCollector does not dump the value of a cookie, as it may contain sensitive information (e.g. session id).

• -l/--collect-local-storage: Collect the values stored in web browsers' local storage. By default OSXCollector does not dump the values as they may contain sensitive information.

• -d/--debug: Enables verbose output and python breakpoints. If something is wrong with OSXCollector, try this.

  $ sudo osxcollector.py -d
  

Details of Collection

The collector outputs a .tar.gz containing all the collected artifacts. The archive contains a JSON file with the majority of information. Additionally, a set of useful logs from the target system logs are included.

Common Keys

Every Record

Each line of the JSON file records 1 piece of information. There are some common keys that appear in every JSON record:

• osxcollector_incident_id: A unique ID shared by every record.
• osxcollector_section: The section or type of data this record holds.
• osxcollector_subsection: The subsection or more detailed descriptor of the type of data this record holds.

File Records

For records representing files there are a bunch of useful keys:

• atime: The file accessed time.
• ctime: The file creation time.
• mtime: The file modified time.
• file_path: The absolute path to the file.
• md5: MD5 hash of the file contents.
• sha1: SHA1 hash of the file contents.
• sha2: SHA2 hash of the file contents.

For records representing downloaded files:

• xattr-wherefrom: A list containing the source and referrer URLs for the downloaded file.
• xattr-quarantines: A string describing which application downloaded the file.

SQLite Records

For records representing a row of a SQLite database:

• osxcollector_table_name: The table name the row comes from.
• osxcollector_db_path: The absolute path to the SQLite file.

For records that represent data associated with a specific user:

• osxcollector_username: The name of the user

Timestamps

OSXCollector attempts to convert timestamps to human readable date/time strings in the format YYYY-mm-dd hh:MM:ss. It uses heuristics to automatically identify various timestamps:

• seconds since epoch
• milliseconds since epoch
• seconds since 2001-01-01
• seconds since 1601-01-01

Sections

version section

The current version of OSXCollector.

system_info section

Collects basic information about the system:

• system name
• node name
• release
• version
• machine

kext section

Collects the Kernel extensions from:

• /System/Library/Extensions
• /Library/Extensions

startup section

Collects information about the LaunchAgents, LaunchDaemons, ScriptingAdditions, StartupItems and other login items from: