Template -- UAC bypass via auto-elevating binary

SIGMA detection rule by WinstonRedGuard -- sigma plugin canonical templates · Unknown

Canonical sigma detection template for MITRE ATT&CK T1548.002 (Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism: Bypass User Account Control). A small set of signed Windows binaries auto-elevate without prompting; several of them launch a child process by consulting a per-user registry key an unprivileged process can write. The bypass is therefore visible as an ordinary elevated child of one of those binaries -- fodhelper, computerdefaults, sdclt, eventvwr -- spawning a shell or script host, which those binaries have no legitimate reason to do. Synthetic exemplar from the WinstonRedGuard threat-intel corpus -- no actor binding; review and bind to your environment before deployment.

title: Template -- UAC bypass via auto-elevating binary
id: 4697aab6-f752-5dcf-b9f2-f1e654416387
status: experimental
description: >-
  Canonical sigma detection template for MITRE ATT&CK T1548.002
  (Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism: Bypass User Account Control). A small set
  of signed Windows binaries auto-elevate without prompting; several of them
  launch a child process by consulting a per-user registry key an unprivileged
  process can write. The bypass is therefore visible as an ordinary elevated
  child of one of those binaries -- fodhelper, computerdefaults, sdclt,
  eventvwr -- spawning a shell or script host, which those binaries have no
  legitimate reason to do. Synthetic exemplar from the WinstonRedGuard
  threat-intel corpus -- no actor binding; review and bind to your environment
  before deployment.
references:
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1548/002/
author: WinstonRedGuard -- sigma plugin canonical templates
date: '2026-07-29'
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: windows
detection:
  selection_autoelevate_parent:
    ParentImage|endswith:
    - \fodhelper.exe
    - \computerdefaults.exe
    - \sdclt.exe
    - \eventvwr.exe
    - \slui.exe
  selection_shell_child:
    Image|endswith:
    - \cmd.exe
    - \powershell.exe
    - \pwsh.exe
    - \wscript.exe
    - \cscript.exe
    - \mshta.exe
    - \rundll32.exe
    - \regsvr32.exe
  condition: selection_autoelevate_parent and selection_shell_child
falsepositives:
- Administrators genuinely using Event Viewer or the Settings pages and
  launching a console from within them, which is uncommon but not impossible
- Endpoint management or remote-support tooling that drives the Windows
  Settings UI programmatically and inherits one of these parents
- Software that legitimately shells out from the licensing UI (slui) during
  activation troubleshooting
level: high
tags:
- attack.t1548.002
- wrg.template
- wrg.tactic.privilege_escalation

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