Microsoft warns of recent “Payroll Pirate” rip-off stealing workers’ direct deposits

Microsoft is warning of an energetic rip-off that diverts workers’ paycheck funds to attacker-controlled accounts after first taking up their profiles on Workday or different cloud-based HR providers.

Payroll Pirate, as Microsoft says the marketing campaign has been dubbed, good points entry to victims’ HR portals by sending them phishing emails that trick the recipients into offering their credentials for logging in to the cloud account. The scammers are capable of get well multi-factor authentication codes through the use of adversary-in-the-middle techniques, which work by sitting between the victims and the positioning they suppose they’re logging in to, which is, in actual fact, a pretend website operated by the attackers.

Not all MFA is created equal

The attackers then enter the intercepted credentials, together with the MFA code, into the true website. This tactic, which has grown more and more frequent lately, underscores the significance of adopting FIDO-compliant types of MFA, that are proof against such assaults.

As soon as inside the staff’ accounts, the scammers make modifications to payroll configurations inside Workday. The modifications trigger direct-deposit funds to be diverted from accounts initially chosen by the worker and as a substitute move to an account managed by the attackers. To dam messages Workday robotically sends to customers when such account particulars have been modified, the attackers create electronic mail guidelines that maintain the messages from showing within the inbox.

“The menace actor used life like phishing emails, concentrating on accounts at a number of universities, to reap credentials,” Microsoft mentioned in a Thursday submit. “Since March 2025, we’ve noticed 11 efficiently compromised accounts at three universities that have been used to ship phishing emails to almost 6,000 electronic mail accounts throughout 25 universities.”