• Sublime Core Feed
Medium Severity

Display name and subject impersonation using recipient SLD (new sender)

Description

The recipient domain's SLD is used in the sender's display name and in the subject to impersonate the organization.

References

No references.

Sublime Security
Created Nov 21st, 2023 • Last updated Jul 16th, 2025
Source
type.inbound
and (
  // recipient SLD is being impersonated in the subject + display name
  (
    // these are usually targeted with just 1 recipient,
    // but sometimes they CC themselves or have a blank CC
    (
      length(recipients.to) + length(recipients.cc) + length(recipients.bcc) <= 2
    )
    and any(recipients.to,
            length(.email.domain.sld) >= 4
            // ensure that we're checking the org SLD
            and .email.domain.sld in $org_slds
            and strings.icontains(subject.subject, .email.domain.sld)
            and strings.icontains(sender.display_name, .email.domain.sld)
    )
  )
  or (
    // accounts for BCC'd messages where the recipients are empty
    // if BCC, sometimes the recipient will be the attacker's email
    (
      length(recipients.to) + length(recipients.cc) + length(recipients.bcc) <= 2
    )
    and length(mailbox.email.domain.sld) >= 4
    and strings.icontains(subject.subject, mailbox.email.domain.sld)
    and strings.icontains(sender.display_name, mailbox.email.domain.sld)
  )
)
and (
  // at least 1 link or non-image attachment
  (
    length(body.links) > 0
    // these attacks all use compromosed senders, so we look for a domain
    // that doesn't match the sender's domain to weed out legit messages
    and any(body.links,
            .href_url.domain.root_domain != sender.email.domain.root_domain
    )
  )
  or length(filter(attachments, .file_type not in $file_types_images)) > 0
)
and not (
  strings.contains(sender.display_name, "on behalf of")
  and sender.email.domain.root_domain == "microsoftonline.com"
)
and all(recipients.to, .email.email != sender.email.email)

// negate org domain senders, which can often be misconfigured and fail
// authentication, causing them to be type.inbound instead of type.internal.
// this is fine because we should catch spoofs in other ways.
// also, we use root_domain here to account for subdomains used by internal tools that aren't connected to the tenant.
// this should also be safe because domains like onmicrosoft[.]com are tracked as FQDNs in $org_domains, so they won't match
and sender.email.domain.root_domain not in $org_domains

// negate highly trusted sender domains unless they fail DMARC authentication
and (
  (
    sender.email.domain.root_domain in $high_trust_sender_root_domains
    and not headers.auth_summary.dmarc.pass
  )
  or sender.email.domain.root_domain not in $high_trust_sender_root_domains
)
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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