A recently published article in the Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions journal provides new evidence that pathogens are hijacking the plant immune system to cause disease while providing insights into a newly discovered mechanism. A large variety of pathogens infect plants and cause different diseases, which can lead to reduced crop yields. During infection, pathogens secrete effector proteins into the plant cell. Some of these proteins target plant proteasomal degradation machinery, which is responsible for recycling proteins to regulate cell processes. Some E1, E2 and E3-ligase proteins have been identified as playing a role in plant susceptibility or resistance to pathogen invasion. SALT- AND DROUGHT-INDUCED RING FINGER1 (SDIR1) is an E3-ligase that degrades regulators of the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) in response to drought stress.