Important security information regarding Cornell payroll

The following message was sent to the Cornell community by Joanne DeStefano, executive vice president and chief financial officer, June 15:

Cornell Information Technologies and the Payroll Office have identified an issue involving the misuse by an unauthorized third party of a few Cornell NetID passwords to commit financial fraud. This was the result of a phishing scheme designed to steal personal information; it was not a breach of Cornell’s security systems.

The Payroll Office has already alerted the individuals who we believe have been affected; however, there may be others affected as well. To that end, we encourage all Cornell faculty, staff and students who are paid by Cornell payroll to verify the direct deposit information for their paychecks by taking these five steps:

  • Go to Cornell’s Workday system at http://workday.cornell.edu.
  • Click the Log In button and enter your Cornell NetID and password.
  • Click the Pay icon (yellow circle with paper money and coins).
  • In the Actions box, click Payment Elections.
  • Verify that your Bank Name and partial Account Number are correct.

If you notice that your direct deposit banking information has been changed, please contact the Payroll Office immediately at 607-255-5194.

As an additional safeguard, the ability to change direct deposit options has been temporarily disabled for the entire university. If you need to make a change at this time, please contact the Payroll Office for assistance.

We strongly recommend that you consider adding a layer of protection to your NetID password by enabling Two-Step Login, available here. If you need help implementing Two-Step Login, please contact the IT Service Desk at 607-255-5500 or itservicedesk@cornell.edu.

To learn more about phishing schemes and ways to protect your personal information, please visit the security section of the CIT website.

The university is actively investigating this issue, and will continue to work to safeguard all personal information.

Media Contact

John Carberry