Threat Modeling

The only security book to be chosen as a Dr. Dobbs Jolt Award Finalist since Bruce Schneier’s Secrets and Lies and Applied Cryptography!

Adam Shostack is responsible for security development lifecycle threat modeling at Microsoft and is one of a handful of threat modeling experts in the world. Now, he is sharing his considerable expertise into this unique book. With pages of specific actionable advice, he details how to build better security into the design of systems, software, or services from the outset. You’ll explore various threat modeling approaches, find out how to test your designs against threats, and learn effective ways to address threats that have been validated at Microsoft and other top companies.

Systems security managers, you’ll find tools and a framework for structured thinking about what can go wrong. Software developers, you’ll appreciate the jargon-free and accessible introduction to this essential skill. Security professionals, you’ll learn to discern changing threats and discover the easiest ways to adopt a structured approach to threat modeling.

• Provides a unique how-to for security and software developers who need to design secure products and systems and test their designs
• Explains how to threat model and explores various threat modeling approaches, such as asset-centric, attacker-centric and software-centric
• Provides effective approaches and techniques that have been proven at Microsoft and elsewhere
• Offers actionable how-to advice not tied to any specific software, operating system, or programming language
• Authored by a Microsoft professional who is one of the most prominent threat modeling experts in the world

As more software is delivered on the Internet or operates on Internet-connected devices, the design of secure software is absolutely critical. Make sure you’re ready with Threat Modeling: Designing for Security.

Table of Contents

Part I Getting Started

Chapter 1 Dive In and Threat Model!

Chapter 2 Strategies for Threat Modeling

Part II Finding Threats

Chapter 3 STRIDE

Chapter 4 Attack Trees

Chapter 5 Attack Libraries

Chapter 6 Privacy Tools

Part Ill Managing and Addressing Threats

Chapter 7 Processing and Managing Threats

Chapter 8 Defensive Tactics and Technologies

Chapter 9 Trade-Offs When Addressing Threats

Chapter 10 Validating That Threats Are Addressed

Chapter 11 Threat Modeling Tools

Part IV Threat Modeling in Technologies and Tricky Areas

Chapter 12 Requirements Cookbook

Chapter 13 Web and Cloud Threats

Chapter 14 Accounts and Identity

Chapter 15 Human Factors and Usability

Chapter 16 Threats to Cryptosystems

Part V Taking It to the Next Level

Chapter 17 Bringing Threat Modeling to Your Organization

Chapter 18 Experimental Approaches

Chapter 19 Architecting for Success

Appendix A Helpful Tools

Appendix B Threat Trees

Appendix C Attacker Lists

Appendix D Elevation of Privilege: The Cards

Appendix E Case Studies

About the Author

Adam Shostack is a principal program manager on Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing team. He helped found the CVE , the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, and the International Financial Cryptography Association His experience shipping products (at both Microsoft and tiny startups) and managing operational security ensures the advice in this book is grounded in real experience.