Threat modeling is a software testing technique that sifts through potential vulnerabilities in order to quantify the risk and likelihood of them being exploited. It focuses on identifying every potential threat and weakness your software could be hit with, as well as how likely that attack would be successful. This article will explain what threat modeling is, why it’s an important tool for testing security, and how you can start implementing this strategy at your company.
What is threat modeling?
Threat modeling is the process of taking an existing piece of software, along with any specific information about it, such as its purpose, functions, and external dependencies, and identifying every threat and weakness in the system. The goal is to quantify how vulnerable your software is to external attackers — both with what they know and what they don’t know.
Why is threat modeling important for testing security?
Threat modeling is a core part of any security testing process. It is one of the first steps in building a security test strategy and comes before any kind of hacking scenario. The process of threat modeling is extremely valuable because it helps you to form a picture in your head of all of the external threats your software is exposed to. You can then tailor your testing scenario to focus on only the risk factors that are most relevant to your product. This helps to prioritize your testing efforts so you can prioritize testing your most critical issues. And in turn, you can also form a better risk assessment for your project — increasing confidence in the product as a whole.
Threat modeling is an essential part of any testing strategy for security. It helps you to form a picture in your head of all of the external threats your software is exposed to. And then you can tailor your testing scenario to focus on only the risk factors that are most relevant to your product. This helps to prioritize your testing efforts so you can prioritize testing your most critical issues. And in turn, you can also form a better risk assessment for your project — increasing confidence in the product as a whole.
Walk through an example threat model
Let’s say you’ve been hired to perform security audits of a specific product. After performing a variety of tests, you’ve found that the product has a high likelihood of being attacked. The product contains a database of customer information, including usernames and passwords. The database is populated with older data that hasn’t been changed recently.
You’ve been tasked with finding a way to audit this database without exposing your company to security risks. First, you need to figure out what the risk is to your product. There are a few ways you can do this:
- Threat modeling: You can perform threat modeling on the product to figure out the risk of it being attacked.
- Impact analysis: You can perform impact analysis on the data stored in the database to figure out the risk of it being attacked.
- Risk analysis: You can perform a risk analysis on the business impact if the database were to be attacked to figure out the risk of it being attacked.
After answering these questions, you’re ready to start identifying the potential threats your software could be hit with. Let’s say you find a high likelihood that an attacker would exploit a specific weakness in your software. The weakness would allow an attacker to log into a user’s account if he or she sent a specially crafted login request. In order to exploit this weakness, an attacker would need to know a user’s username and password.
How to use a threat model in your testing process
Now that you’ve identified the potential risks your software faces, you can use them to guide your testing process. First, you can use a threat model methodology to guide your design decisions. Let’s say you’ve found a high likelihood of an attacker exploiting a specific weakness in your software. This weakness would allow an attacker to log into a user’s account if he or she sent a specially crafted login request. After determining this risk, you might decide to design the product in a way that minimizes this risk. For example, you might decide to allow users to log in with only the username and password.
Conclusion
Threat modeling is a core part of any testing strategy for security. It helps you to form a picture in your head of all of the external threats your software is exposed to. And then you can tailor your testing scenario to focus on only the risk factors that are most relevant to your product. This helps to prioritize your testing efforts so you can focus on your most critical issues. And in turn, you can also form a better risk assessment for your project — increasing confidence in the product as a whole.
Threat modeling is a must-have for any preventive cybersecurity strategy to improve your cyber resilience.
