• Sublime Core Feed

Description

This rule detects messages attempting to initiate a Romance scam. The rule leverage tells such as undisclosed recipients, freemail emails in the body and common scam phrasing. Romance scams are deceptive schemes where scammers establish false romantic intentions towards individuals to gain their trust and eventually exploit them financially.

References

No references.

Sublime Security
Created Nov 22nd, 2023 • Last updated Jan 22nd, 2026
Source
type.inbound
// no links
and (
  length(body.links) == 0
  // or 1 link, but link doesn't match the sender's domain
  or (
    length(body.links) == 1
    and sender.email.domain.root_domain not in $free_email_providers
    and all(body.links,
            .href_url.domain.root_domain != sender.email.domain.root_domain
    )
  )
)
// no attachments
and length(attachments) == 0
and (
  (
    // honorific
    regex.icontains(sender.display_name,
                    '(?:Mr|Mrs|Ms|Miss|Dr|Prof|Sir|Lady|Rev)\.?[ \t]+'
    )
    // And an email is found in the body, and a freemail domain is found also
    and regex.contains(body.current_thread.text,
                       "[A-Za-z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\\.[A-Za-z]{2,}"
    )
    and any($free_email_providers,
            strings.icontains(body.current_thread.text, .)
    )
    // scammy phrases
    and regex.icontains(body.current_thread.text,
                        '(?:I am|My name is) .* (?:from|staying in) .+\.',
                        '(?:years old|cm|kg).*\.',
                        '(?:photo|pictures|sexy).*\.',
                        '(?:email|contact me|write to me|reply to me) at .*@.*\.'
    )
  )
  or (
    // simple firstname lastname from freemail
    sender.email.domain.root_domain in $free_email_providers
    and regex.match(sender.display_name, '[A-Z][a-z]+ [A-Z][a-z]+')
    // short message
    and length(body.current_thread.text) < 200
    and regex.icontains(body.current_thread.text,
                        "(?:I am|My name is) [^.!?]{1,30} from [^.!?]{1,50}[.!?,]"
    )
    and regex.icontains(body.current_thread.text,
                        '(?:can I|please) (?:talk to|contact|meet|chat with) (?:you|me)'
    )
  )
)
and (
  (
    profile.by_sender().prevalence in ("new", "outlier")
    and not profile.by_sender().solicited
  )
  or (
    profile.by_sender().any_messages_malicious_or_spam
    and not profile.by_sender().any_messages_benign
  )
)
and not profile.by_sender().any_messages_benign
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