MITRE ATT&CKtechnique
T1697 Steal Application Specific Passwords
- Domain
- enterprise
- Tactics
- Credential Access
- Platforms
- Office Suite, Identity Provider, SaaS
- Version
- 1.0
- Created
- 2026-09-17
Description
Adversaries may steal Application Specific Passwords (ASPs) to gain access to Valid Accounts, bypassing multifactor authentication (MFA) methods. ASPs are passwords typically used to give third-party applications or legacy devices (which do not support MFA methods) account access.
An adversary may socially engineer a user into providing an ASP (using methods like Phishing for Information), generate an ASP for an already compromised account, or obtain an ASP stored on a system. Afterward, adversaries may use the ASP to access Valid Accounts and, in some cases, maintain Persistence, bypassing any form of MFA set on the account.
Related
Tactic · MITRE ATT&CK (1)
- TA0006 Credential Access tactic
Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · mitigates (4)
Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · uses (1)
- G1044 APT42 group
References
- https://astrix.security/learn/blog/app-specific-passwords-origins-functionality-security-risks/ Application Specific Passwords
- https://pushsecurity.com/blog/app-specific-password-phishing Application Specific Passwords Push Sec
- https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/creative-phishing-academics-critics-of-russia UNC6293 ASP Creative Phishing Attack
- https://blog.google/threat-analysis-group/iranian-backed-group-steps-up-phishing-campaigns-against-israel-us/ TAG APT42
- https://citizenlab.ca/research/russian-government-linked-social-engineering-targets-app-specific-passwords/ Application Specific Passwords Phishing
- https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/untangling-iran-apt42-operations Mandiant APT42-untangling