This is a social engineering attack because the adversary manipulated human trust and urgency to induce an unauthorized action: the transfer of sensitive employee data. The attacker used impersonation, authority pressure (executive pretext), and a controlled “verification” channel (the attacker’s phone number) to make the request appear legitimate. These are hallmark social engineering techniques, and in many organizations this is categorized under business email compromise (BEC) or executive impersonation fraud. Credential theft is not the primary outcome described; the attacker did not need passwords if they could convince HR to release data directly. Web-based intrusion and application exploit refer to technical exploitation of systems, which is not indicated. From a SOC response perspective, handling social engineering incidents includes immediate containment (stop further transfers, notify legal/HR, preserve email evidence), scoping who else received similar requests, and implementing process controls: out-of-band verification using known trusted channels, call-back procedures, dual approval for sensitive requests, and training to recognize urgency-based manipulation. Therefore, “Social engineering attack” is the correct classification.