• Sublime Core Feed
High Severity

VIP / Executive impersonation (strict match, untrusted)

Labels

BEC/Fraud
Impersonation: VIP
Header analysis
Sender analysis

Description

Sender display name matches the display name of a user in the $org_vips list, and the sender has never been seen before.

The $org_vips list must first be manually connected to a VIP group of your upstream provider (Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 only) in order for this rule to work. Once connected, the list will be automatically synced and kept up-to-date. For more information, see the $org_vips documentation: https://docs.sublimesecurity.com/docs/configure-org_vips-list

This rule is recommended to be used on a relatively small list of VIPs, and is meant to reduce attack surface by detecting *any* message that matches the protected list of display names from a first-time or unsolicited sender.

Additional rule logic can be added to look for suspicious subjects, suspicious links, etc.

References

No references.

Sublime Security
Created Aug 17th, 2023 • Last updated Jul 16th, 2025
Feed Source
Sublime Core Feed
Source
GitHub
type.inbound
and any($org_vips, .display_name =~ sender.display_name)
and (
  // ignore personal <> work emails
  // where the sender and mailbox's display name are the same
  length(recipients.to) > 0
  or length(recipients.cc) > 0
  or sender.display_name != mailbox.display_name
)
// bounce-back negations
and not strings.like(sender.email.local_part, "*postmaster*", "*mailer-daemon*", "*administrator*")
and not any(attachments,
            .content_type in (
              "message/rfc822",
              "message/delivery-status",
              "text/calendar"
            )
)
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 (
  (
    sender.email.domain.root_domain in $org_domains
    and not headers.auth_summary.dmarc.pass
  )
  or sender.email.domain.root_domain not in $org_domains
)
and not profile.by_sender().any_messages_benign
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