Describe the behaviour you want to detect. SARA writes a starting Sigma rule with MITRE tags, false-positive guidance, and detection-engineering context. Anonymous, no account, best-effort generic detection.
title: Potential CVE-2014-4148 Exploitation - IE Child Process Execution
id: 1ee320f3-de10-49ca-9c23-b2097dfc078f
status: experimental
description: |
Detects potential exploitation of CVE-2014-4148 (CISA KEV-listed, CVSS 7.6), a memory corruption vulnerability in Internet Explorer.
Exploitation often results in Internet Explorer (iexplore.exe) spawning unexpected child processes like cmd.exe, powershell.exe, or wscript.exe.
This rule is a starting point — tune for your environment.
references:
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2014-4148
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog
author: SARA Detection Engineering
date: 2026-08-15
tags:
- attack.execution
- attack.t1059
- attack.t1059.001
- attack.t1059.003
- attack.t1203
- attack.t1204.002
logsource:
category: process_creation
product: windows
detection:
selection_parent:
ParentImage|endswith:
- '\iexplore.exe'
selection_child:
Image|endswith:
- '\cmd.exe'
- '\powershell.exe'
- '\pwsh.exe'
- '\wscript.exe'
- '\cscript.exe'
- '\mshta.exe'
- '\rundll32.exe'
- '\regsvr32.exe'
filter_legitimate_activex:
Image|endswith:
- '\werfault.exe'
- '\msiexec.exe'
condition: selection_parent and selection_child and not filter_legitimate_activex
falsepositives:
- Legitimate web applications or enterprise portals configured to launch local helper executables via protocol handlers.
- Older enterprise ActiveX controls spawning helper scripts.
level: high
Sigma is the open, vendor-neutral format for log-based detections. One rule, written once, converts to Splunk SPL, Elastic ES|QL, KQL for Microsoft Sentinel, Sumo, Chronicle, QRadar, and more. Detection engineers love it for the same reason ATT&CK is the lingua franca for tactics — Sigma is the lingua franca for the queries that detect them.
You've got a fresh write-up of a TTP and need a starting detection in your stack today. Generate, tune, ship.
Pair-program with SARA: the generator produces the skeleton, the engineer learns by tuning, the team commits the result.
You have a rule in one query language; describe it in English and get the Sigma version + conversions to every other backend.
Sketch a detection idea in 30 seconds before investing in a full DE sprint.
SARA Open ships an OpenAI-compatible API. Call POST /api/v1/sigma — Plain English in, valid Sigma YAML out, with MITRE tags and false-positive guidance.
curl -X POST https://sara-open.sirp.io/api/v1/sigma \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SARA_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"description": "PowerShell encoded command from Office"}'
Read the API reference →