Microsoft warns of latest “Payroll Pirate” rip-off stealing staff’ direct deposits

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

Payroll Pirate, as Microsoft says the marketing campaign has been dubbed, positive factors 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 in a position to recuperate multi-factor authentication codes through the use of adversary-in-the-middle ways, which work by sitting between the victims and the positioning they assume they’re logging in to, which is, in truth, a faux 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 widespread lately, underscores the significance of adopting FIDO-compliant types of MFA, that are resistant to such assaults.

As soon as inside the workers’ 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 an alternative circulation 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 e-mail guidelines that maintain the messages from showing within the inbox.

“The menace actor used lifelike phishing emails, focusing on accounts at a number of universities, to reap credentials,” Microsoft mentioned in a Thursday put up. “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 e-mail accounts throughout 25 universities.”