This detection rule, authored by Elastic, targets malicious activities involving the root crontab file on macOS systems. The primary goal is to identify unauthorized modifications, which may allow adversaries to execute commands with root privileges. Such modifications can facilitate privilege escalation, making it a high-severity threat. The rule operates by monitoring for events where the root crontab file located at '/private/var/at/tabs/root' is accessed, while filtering out legitimate process invocations from the executable '/usr/bin/crontab'. Alerts generated by this rule should be carefully investigated as they can signify attempts by attackers to exploit vulnerabilities that allow for unauthorized access or command execution under elevated permissions. The setup requires integration with Elastic Defend and data collection via the Elastic Agent, ensuring comprehensive endpoint security.