If you sign off on payroll every few weeks, you probably feel confident that the money is going where it’s supposed to go.

However, many business owners don’t realize that payroll fraud is a real problem. Okta’s latest threat intelligence shows that payroll fraud is quietly becoming one of the most profitable cybercrimes targeting everyday businesses.

When bonuses, commissions, and holiday paychecks are in motion, attackers see opportunity. Instead of locking systems or causing noticeable damage, criminals slip in and redirect money before anyone notices.

Why Payroll Is a Goldmine for Cybercriminals Right Now

Cybercriminals follow the money, and payroll is predictable, recurring, and trusted. However, because most people would notice a significant change to their weekly pay, payroll diversion fraud and direct deposit hijacking often target holiday bonuses.

Instead of blasting thousands of phishing emails or dropping ransomware, these surgical attacks target one or two employees (usually higher-paid ones) and quietly change the direct deposit routing on their paycheck. Once they make the switch, the employee’s pay is deposited into the attacker’s account.

But how do the hackers get access to employee accounts? In most cases, they simply call or email the help desk pretending to be the employee. They already have a few pieces of personal information (usually scraped from LinkedIn, data breaches, or social media), claim they’re locked out of the benefits portal, and beg for a quick password reset or a change to direct deposit.

Because the request sounds urgent and happens during the holiday rush, many support teams approve it without following the standard verification process.

Why Traditional Security Tools Miss These Attacks

Firewalls and endpoint protection do very little to prevent most payroll diversion fraud protection failures. These attacks exploit trust, process gaps, and rushed approvals. From a system perspective, everything looks legitimate.

Payroll changes submitted through proper channels rarely raise alarms. That is what makes payroll fraud so difficult to detect until an employee reports missing pay. By then, recovery is often slow and incomplete.

Simple Steps To Reduce Payroll Risk

Workplace cybersecurity and payroll safety depend on process discipline, not just technology. Businesses can reduce exposure to holiday bonus phishing scams with a few practical controls:

• Require multi-step verification for any payroll or direct deposit change.
• Separate payroll approval duties so no single person can authorize changes alone.
• Delay payroll change requests before bonus cycles to allow extra review time.
• Train HR and help desk staff to recognize employee help desk social engineering tactics.
• Encourage employees to verify changes directly through known internal contacts.

These steps are inexpensive and effective.

Payroll Fraud Isn’t Going Away, But You Can Make It Much Harder

Payroll fraud through diversion and employee help desk social engineering thrives because it’s low-risk and high-reward for attackers. The good news? Most successful attacks rely on bypassing basic human verification steps that you can tighten today.

Take a few minutes this week to review your change-of-banking procedures and talk to your team about staying extra cautious during the holiday bonus season. Direct deposit hijacking awareness and workplace cybersecurity and payroll safety discipline now can save you (and your employees) from a costly January surprise.

Used with permission from Article Aggregator