• Sublime Core Feed

Description

Detects potential reconnaissance messages with very short, generic content like 'Hi' or 'Hello' from external senders. These messages are often used to validate email addresses and test deliverability before launching larger attacks.

References

No references.

Sublime Security
Created Sep 5th, 2025 • Last updated Jan 27th, 2026
Source
type.inbound
// detect generic greetings
and length(body.current_thread.text) <= 20
and length(subject.base) <= 15
// exclude messages with previous thread context (forwards/replies)
and length(body.previous_threads) == 0
and (
  any(ml.nlu_classifier(body.current_thread.text).entities, .name == "greeting")
  or strings.ilike(body.current_thread.text, "*hi*", "*hello*", "*hey*")
  or length(body.current_thread.text) <= 5
  or regex.match(body.current_thread.text, '\d+')
)
// external freemail sender
and sender.email.domain.root_domain in $free_email_providers
and sender.email.domain.root_domain not in (
  recipients.to[0].email.domain.root_domain
)
and (
  length(recipients.cc) == 0
  or (
    length(recipients.cc) > 0
    and all(recipients.cc,
            .email.domain.root_domain != sender.email.domain.root_domain
    )
  )
)
and (
  length(recipients.bcc) == 0
  or (
    length(recipients.bcc) > 0
    and all(recipients.bcc,
            .email.domain.root_domain != sender.email.domain.root_domain
    )
  )
)
// no attachments or links
and length(attachments) == 0
and length(body.current_thread.links) == 0
// negate sender profiles completely if auth is failing
and (
  (
    not (
      coalesce(headers.auth_summary.dmarc.pass, false)
      or headers.auth_summary.spf.pass == false
    )
    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
  )
  or (
    coalesce(headers.auth_summary.dmarc.pass, false)
    or headers.auth_summary.spf.pass == false
  )
)
MQL Rule Console
DocsLearning Labs

Playground

Test against your own EMLs or sample data.

Share

Post about this on your socials.

Get Started. Today.

Managed or self-managed. No MX changes.

Deploy and integrate a free Sublime instance in minutes.
Get Started