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.^[1],[2]

An adversary may socially engineer a user into providing an ASP^[3],[4] (using methods like Phishing for Information), generate an ASP for an already compromised account,^[5],[6] 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.

References

1. Tomer Yahalom. (2024, August 14). App-Specific Passwords: Origins, Functionality, Security Risks and Mitigation. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
2. Dan Green. (2025, June 26). App-Specific Password phishing: another novel way to get around passkeys and MFA. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
3. Gabby Roncone, Wesley Shields. (2025, June 18). What’s in an ASP? Creative Phishing Attack on Prominent Academics and Critics of Russia. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
4. John Scott-Railton, Rebekah Brown, Bill Marczak. (2025, June 18). Same Sea, New Phish | Russian Government-Linked Social Engineering Targets App-Specific Passwords. Retrieved September 22, 2026.
5. Rozmann, O., et al. (2024, May 1). Uncharmed: Untangling Iran's APT42 Operations. Retrieved October 9, 2024.
6. Google Threat Analysis Group. (2024, August 14). Iranian backed group steps up phishing campaigns against Israel, U.S.. Retrieved October 9, 2024.

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