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Helpdesk Impersonation: A High-Risk Social Engineering Attack

Helpdesk impersonation is a social‑engineering technique where attackers pose as employees or partners to trick IT support staff into granting unauthorized access. By leveraging publicly available information and urgency cues, they can obtain password resets, MFA device changes, and privileged accounts, bypassing traditional technical defenses. Successful attacks have led to full account takeovers, lateral movement, and data exfiltration in both technology and healthcare sectors. Mitigation requires stronger identity verification, phishing‑resistant MFA, staff training, and continuous monitoring of helpdesk activities.