Medium Severity
Fake message thread with a suspicious link and engaging language from an unknown sender
Description
Detects fake message threads with suspicious links and financial request language
References
No references.
Sublime Security
Created Aug 17th, 2023 • Last updated Apr 23rd, 2024
Feed Source
Sublime Core Feed
Source
type.inbound
and length(body.links) < 10
// fake thread check
and (
strings.istarts_with(subject.subject, "RE:")
or strings.istarts_with(subject.subject, "FWD:")
)
// Check for the Presence of References or In-Reply-To properties
and (
(length(headers.references) == 0 and headers.in_reply_to is null)
or not any(headers.hops, any(.fields, strings.ilike(.name, "In-Reply-To")))
)
// sender's domain is not in body, and body has > 0 links
and length(body.links) > 0
and sender.email.domain.root_domain not in $free_email_providers
and not any(body.links,
.href_url.domain.root_domain == sender.email.domain.root_domain
)
// unusual sender (email address rarely sends to your organization)
and sender.email.email not in $sender_emails
// unusual sender domain (domain rarely sends to your organization)
and sender.email.domain.domain not in $sender_domains
and 4 of (
// language attempting to engage
(
any(ml.nlu_classifier(body.current_thread.text).entities,
.name == "request"
)
and any(ml.nlu_classifier(body.current_thread.text).entities,
.name == "financial"
)
),
// invoicing language
any(ml.nlu_classifier(body.current_thread.text).tags, .name == "invoice"),
// urgency request
any(ml.nlu_classifier(body.current_thread.text).entities, .name == "urgency"),
// cred_theft detection
any(ml.nlu_classifier(body.current_thread.text).intents,
.name == "cred_theft" and .confidence in~ ("medium", "high")
),
// commonly abused sender TLD
strings.ilike(sender.email.domain.tld, "*.jp"),
// headers traverse abused TLD
any(headers.domains, strings.ilike(.tld, "*.jp")),
// known suspicious pattern in the URL path
any(body.links, regex.match(.href_url.path, '\/[a-z]{3}\d[a-z]')),
// link display text is in all caps
any(body.links, regex.match(.display_text, '[A-Z ]+')),
// display name contains an email
regex.contains(sender.display_name, '[a-z0-9]+@[a-z]+'),
// Sender domain is empty
sender.email.domain.domain == "",
// sender domain matches no body domains
all(body.links,
.href_url.domain.root_domain != sender.email.domain.root_domain
),
)
// 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
)
Playground
Test against your own EMLs or sample data.