Today’s digital age makes almost all IT systems vulnerable to multiple threats. Technology advances constantly, so more are added. These threats can come from the outside or inside an organization and can have devastating consequences. The system could become inoperable, or sensitive data could be exposed, which could lower consumer confidence in the supplier. To prevent these threats, organizations can use threat modeling techniques to think defensively. This article will cover the threat modeling process and its many methodologies.
Introduction to threat modeling
Threat modeling is a way to assess the security of an application or system. It is used to identify, quantify and mitigate security risks associated with an application or system. Threat modeling is a method that allows defenders to analyze the system’s structure, attack vectors and assets in order to determine the best defenses or controls.
You might have dealt with many questions every day, such as:
What areas are most at risk?
What are the most urgent risks?
What can I do to protect my company from cyber attacks?
Threat modeling answers all these questions and helps to prevent potential attacks.
Is threat modeling appropriate?
To avoid costly fixes later, it is important to do threat modeling early in the development process. Threat modeling can help architects make proactive decisions to reduce threats. It is important to keep the threat modeling updated. Every time an application, linked technology, or threat landscape changes, a threat model review should be done and an update performed.
What is the general process of threat modeling?
Threat modeling involves identifying potential or actual vulnerabilities and implementing countermeasures to prevent them from being exploited. This can result in data loss for an organization’s IT system. It will oversee the implementation of the solutions to help in loss prevention.
There are many approaches to threat modeling. One approach is to view it from the perspective of the attacker. Let’s suppose we have an attacker on the internet. This attacker could be from outside or within the network. We can see the attacker’s goals and capabilities from their perspective and what they can do with our data and systems.
Another option is to approach the problem from the perspective of architecture. There are servers, switches, routers and firewalls as well as printers, infrastructure, data, and infrastructure. We can also look at them architecturally, identifying potential vulnerabilities and then implementing countermeasures that will protect those components from attackers.
The third approach focuses on assets, such essential data in every component of a system. This approach identifies critical assets that could have a significant impact upon corporate operations if compromised or made inaccessible. It determines the motivation for potential attackers to gain access, the value of these resources to them and the amount of work required in compromise of these assets. Most organizations address the threat from all three perspectives.
There are many steps involved in threat modeling.
Security threat modeling is important for organizations.
Organizations can use threat modeling to:
Identify the mole and respond