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MITRE ATT&CK® Malware

S0276: Keydnap

This piece of malware steals the content of the user's keychain while maintaining a permanent backdoor [1].

EnterpriseS0276MalwareObject v1.2Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S0276: Keydnap describes This piece of malware steals the content of the user's keychain while maintaining a permanent backdoor (Citation: OSX Keydnap malware).

Executive priority

S0276: Keydnap is an official MITRE ATT&CK software. Glexia treats it as defensive behavior context for prioritizing monitoring, control validation, and response planning without using the object by itself as an attribution claim.

Technical view

Security teams should validate S0276: Keydnap by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (macOS), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.

Likely telemetry

  • Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
  • Network, endpoint, and security-tool telemetry

Detection direction

  • Validate whether S0276: Keydnap appears in your detection coverage and tabletop scenarios.
  • Use the object to align executive risk language with SOC, incident response, and detection engineering work.
  • Do not treat ATT&CK relationship context as attribution without corroborating evidence.

Mitigation priorities

  • Map the object to existing controls and identify missing telemetry or response ownership.
  • Prioritize mitigations that reduce exposure on the listed platforms and tactics.
  • Review adjacent ATT&CK relationships before changing policy, detections, or reporting language.
Additional notes and limits

Baseline Glexia take generated from the official MITRE ATT&CK STIX object, source hash, tactics, platforms, and detection fields. It is safe to replace with a richer model-generated take for the same source hash later.

This baseline take is source-grounded and schema-validated, but it does not include environment-specific telemetry, incident evidence, or threat-intelligence corroboration.

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

Keydnap

This piece of malware steals the content of the user's keychain while maintaining a permanent backdoor [1].

View the same entry on attack.mitre.org (MITRE-hosted reference; in-page links above use the Glexia ATT&CK library.)

Glexia analysis

How security teams should use this page

Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.

ATT&CK relationship table

Techniques used

This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.

9 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1090.003Multi-hop ProxySub-technique

Keydnap uses a copy of tor2web proxy for HTTPS communications.[2]

EnterpriseT1071.001Web ProtocolsSub-technique

Keydnap uses HTTPS for command and control.[2]

EnterpriseT1555.002Securityd MemorySub-technique

Keydnap uses the keychaindump project to read securityd memory.[2]

EnterpriseT1564.009Resource ForkingSub-technique

Keydnap uses a resource fork to present a macOS JPEG or text file icon rather than the executable's icon assigned by the operating system.[1]

EnterpriseT1548.001Setuid and SetgidSub-technique

Keydnap adds the setuid flag to a binary so it can easily elevate in the future.[1]

EnterpriseT1056.002GUI Input CaptureSub-technique

Keydnap prompts the users for credentials.[2]

EnterpriseT1059.006PythonSub-technique

Keydnap uses Python for scripting to execute additional commands.[2]

EnterpriseT1543.001Launch AgentSub-technique

Keydnap uses a Launch Agent to persist.[2]

EnterpriseT1036.006Space after FilenameSub-technique

Keydnap puts a space after a false .jpg extension so that execution actually goes through the Terminal.app program.[2]

Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

Change history

Object version and sync metadata

The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates.

ATT&CK release
19.2
Object version
1.2
Created
Modified
Raw hash
950e4f52e249eea5...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
19.21.2Current bundle950e4f52e249…
19.11.2Older bundle950e4f52e249…
Raw source

Mirrored ATT&CK source object

The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.

Source references

External references and citations

MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.

  1. [1]
    OSX Keydnap malware

    Marc-Etienne M.Leveille. (2016, July 6). New OSX/Keydnap malware is hungry for credentials. Retrieved July 3, 2017.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    synack 2016 review

    Patrick Wardle. (2017, January 1). Mac Malware of 2016. Retrieved September 21, 2018.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    Keydnap

    (Citation: synack 2016 review)

  4. [4]
    OSX/Keydnap

    (Citation: OSX Keydnap malware)

  5. [5]
    mitre-attackS0276
    Open source URL
Source and licensing

Source: MITRE ATT&CK®. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation. Glexia is not affiliated with or endorsed by MITRE.