High Severity

Credential Phishing: W-2 lure with inline SVG Windows logo

Labels

Credential Phishing

Evasion

Description

Detects inbound messages containing a link with W-2 display text and an inline SVG constructed from four colored rectangles approximating the Microsoft Windows logo. Threat actors use hand-crafted SVG elements rather than image attachments to bypass image-based detection and render a convincing Windows or Microsoft brand impersonation directly in the email body. The color matching uses fuzzy hex ranges to account for minor variations across campaigns.

References

No references.

Sublime Security

Created Apr 8th, 2026 • Last updated Apr 8th, 2026

Feed Source

Sublime Core Feed

Source

GitHub

type.inbound
// display text contains a reference to W2
and any(body.current_thread.links,
        regex.icontains(strings.replace_confusables(.display_text),
                        '(?:W|VV)\s*-?\s*2'
        )
)
// inline SVG that mimics the Windows logo
and regex.icontains(body.html.raw,
                    '<rect x="\d+" y="\d+" width="\d+" height="\d+" fill="#[c-f][0-9a-f][0-3][0-9a-f][0-3][0-9a-f]">\s*<\/rect>\s*<rect x="\d+" y="\d+" width="\d+" height="\d+" fill="#[0-3][0-9a-f][8-f][0-9a-f][2-6][0-9a-f]">\s*<\/rect>\s*<rect x="\d+" y="\d+" width="\d+" height="\d+" fill="#[0-3][0-9a-f][5-9][0-9a-f][a-f][0-9a-f]">\s*<\/rect>\s*<rect x="\d+" y="\d+" width="\d+" height="\d+" fill="#[c-f][0-9a-f][a-f][0-9a-f][0-3][0-9a-f]">\s*<\/rect>\s*<\/svg>\s*<\/td>'
)

MQL Rule Console

•Docs•Learning Labs

Playground

Test against your own EMLs or sample data.

Post about this on your socials.

Get Started. Today.

Managed or self-managed. No MX changes.