Threat modeling is a systematic way to understand how a system could be attacked and what defenses are most useful. This lesson introduces its purpose, key questions, historical development, and the idea of describing threats at different levels of detail.
Threat modeling identifies and enumerates potential threats, such as structural vulnerabilities or missing safeguards, and helps prioritize countermeasures. It gives defenders a systematic way to consider the system, likely attacker profiles, probable attack vectors, and valuable assets that might be targeted.
All flashcards
What is threat modeling?
A structured process for identifying potential threats to a system and prioritizing controls to reduce risk.
What does an attack tree represent?
An attacker's goal as the root, with possible ways to achieve it shown in branches and leaves.
What are the highest semantic levels in the DML model?
An attacker's goal and strategy, which describe what they seek to achieve and their overall approach.
What does STRIDE provide?
Six threat categories that can prompt or structure threat analysis.
What does OWASP pytm do?
It uses a Python system definition to generate diagrams and potential threats.
Quiz questions
In STRIDE, what does repudiation describe?Answer: Denying an action when adequate evidence cannot establish what happened.
Which description best characterizes PASTA?Answer: A seven-step, risk-centric method that aligns business objectives with technical requirements.
What does a trust boundary mark in a data flow diagram?Answer: A point where assumptions about trust or control change.
How does SD Elements support threat modeling?Answer: It generates threats from questionnaire responses and provides trackable countermeasure tasks.
Which example is specifically a privacy concern in smart-building threat analysis?Answer: Inferring residents' movement patterns, schedules, or health situations.
Based on the Wikipedia article Threat model, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Adapted into a summary, flashcards and quizzes.