Threat modeling
Threat modeling is a process that can help identify potential security threats and vulnerabilities in a system, and it can be an important complement to other safety and security engineering tools. While code analysis tools and other techniques can be useful for identifying certain types of issues, threat modeling can help identify categories of issues that other tools may not find.
Errors of Omission
One example of this is errors of omission, such as a failure to authenticate a connection. This type of issue may not be identified by a code analysis tool, but it can be identified through the process of threat modeling. Additionally, threat modeling can help identify issues that are unique to a particular system design, and that may not have been encountered in other systems. Through the process of abstracting away details, threat modeling can help identify analogies and similarities to other problems that have been discovered in other systems.
Safety and Security
Another important aspect of threat modeling is that it should focus on issues that other safety and security engineering tools are not likely to find. For example, if a product is being built with a database, the threat modeling process might quickly touch on SQL injection attacks and the variety of trust boundaries that might be injectable. However, since these issues are well-known and are likely to be discovered by other techniques, the threat modeling process should focus on identifying unique issues that are specific to the system being built.
Potential
Overall, threat modeling is an important complement to other safety and security engineering tools. It can help identify potential security threats and vulnerabilities that may not be identified through other techniques, and it can help ensure that a system is designed to be secure from the start. By focusing on unique issues and categories of issues that other tools may not find, the threat modeling process can help ensure that a system is designed to be secure and is able to withstand potential attacks and threats.
