Cybersecurity Threat Modeling

How to Learn Threat Modeling Without Overcomplicating It Threat modeling doesn’t need to be complex. Too many professionals get stuck trying to follow rigid frameworks, overusing tools, or treating it as a one-time exercise. The reality? Threat modeling is about structured thinking, not fancy tools. A Simple Approach to Get Started 👇 1 - What Are You Protecting? ↳ Identify the critical assets—data, applications, cloud workloads, or identities—that need protection. 2 - What Can Go Wrong? ↳ Think like an attacker. What are the biggest threats to those assets? Examples: - Unauthenticated API access - Misconfigured IAM roles - Insider threats 3 - What Are You Doing About It? ↳ Map out existing security controls and identify gaps. Do you have IAM restrictions? Monitoring? Encryption? If a control fails, what happens next? 4 - What Needs to Improve? ↳ No system is perfectly secure. Identify mitigations and prioritize based on risk. Sometimes, simpler fixes (like better logging or MFA) are more effective than complex tools. Common Mistakes to Avoid 1 - Overusing Tools Instead of Thinking Critically ↳ Threat modeling is not about running a tool and getting a report. Tools can help visualize threats, but they don’t replace human judgment. 2 - Trying to Model Every Possible Threat ↳ Focus on the most likely and impactful threats, not creating an exhaustive list of every theoretical risk. 3 - Doing It Once and Forgetting About It ↳ Threat modeling is not a one-time exercise. Your security landscape evolves, and so should your threat models. Focus on structured thinking, avoid overcomplicating the process, and iterate as you go. Good luck on your threat modeling journey !

I am a Security Engineer at Google with 7+ years of experience. Here are 17 lessons I learned about Threat Modelling working in DevSecOps that made me a better Security Engineer... (It took me a lot of mistakes to learn these, but you don't have to!) 1. Threat modelling starts with the business → if you don’t know what makes money, keeps trust, or keeps systems up, your model is just a diagram, not risk. 2. Draw the system before you “secure” it → users, services, queues, third parties, data stores, and which way data flows; no diagram = fake clarity. 3. Trust boundaries are where real trouble lives → anywhere data or control crosses teams, networks, orgs, or privilege levels deserves extra attention. 4. Model the attackers you actually face → insiders, leaked tokens, overprivileged services, abused workflows are more likely than nation-state zero days. 5. Threat modelling belongs in design docs → if it happens after everything is built, you’re just writing an incident report in advance. 6. Architecture is a security decision → multi-tenant vs single-tenant, shared DB vs per-tenant DB, sync vs async all change which attacks are even possible. 7. Your CI/CD and IaC repos are part of the attack surface → build agents, runners, deployment keys, and pipelines should be on the diagram, not an afterthought. 8. Business logic is where attackers quietly print money → refunds, credits, retries, limits, and edge cases need more modelling than your login page. 9. Good threat models are about assumptions → “only service X can call this API” or “this key never leaves the VPC” should be written down and challenged. 10. A threat model without concrete controls is just a story → each high-risk scenario should end in specific changes to design, config, or process. 11. Prevention without detection is half a job → for every serious threat, ask “how would we know this is happening” and “who gets paged.” 12. You can’t fix everything → be explicit about what you accept, why, and who agreed; unspoken risk is what hurts you later. 13. People and process can undo perfect design → who can approve access, hotfix in prod, change configs, and bypass checks must be part of the model. 14. Complexity hides vulnerabilities → if it takes 20 minutes to explain the data flow, you’re probably missing risks and nobody will maintain the controls. 15. Reuse threat patterns for common flows → login, file upload, webhooks, internal admin tools should have standard risks and standard mitigations you pull from. 16. The best sessions feel like debugging, not a police interview → engineers should walk out feeling “we found landmines together,” not “security blocked us again.” 17. Threat modelling is a habit, not an event → bake a small threat section into every big design and major change; repetition beats a once-a-year workshop. -- 📢 Follow saed ‎for more ♻️ share the insights

The OWASP® Foundation Threat and Safeguard Matrix (TaSM) is designed to provide a structured, action-oriented approach to cybersecurity planning. This work on the OWASP website by Ross Young explains how to use the OWASP TaSM and as it relates to GenAI risks: https://lnkd.in/g3ZRypWw These new risks require organizations to think beyond traditional cybersecurity threats and focus on new vulnerabilities specific to AI systems. * * * How to use the TaSM in general: 1) Identify Major Threats - Begin by listing your organization’s key risks. Include common threats like web application attacks, phishing, third-party data breaches, supply chain attacks, and DoS attacks and unique threats, such as insider risks or fraud. - Use frameworks like STRIDE-LM or NIST 800-30 to explore detailed scenarios. 2) Map Threats to NIST Cybersecurity Functions Align each threat with the NIST functions: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. 3) Define Safeguards Mitigate threats by implementing safeguards in 3 areas: - People: Training and awareness programs. - Processes: Policies and operational procedures. - Technology: Tools like firewalls, encryption, and antivirus. 4) Add Metrics to Track Progress - Attach measurable goals to safeguards. - Summarize metrics into a report for leadership. Include KPIs to show successes, challenges, and next steps. 5) Monitor and Adjust Regularly review metrics, identify gaps, and adjust strategies. Use trends to prioritize improvements and investments. 6) Communicate Results Present a concise summary of progress, gaps, and actionable next steps to leadership, ensuring alignment with organizational goals. * * * The TaSM can be expanded for Risk Committees by adding a column to list each department’s top 3-5 threats. This allows the committee to evaluate risks across the company and ensure they are mitigated in a collaborative way. E.g., Cyber can work with HR to train employees and with Legal to ensure compliance when addressing phishing attacks that harm the brand. * * * How the TaSM connects to GenAI risks: The TaSM can be used to address AI-related risks by systematically mapping specific GenAI threats - such as sensitive data leaks, malicious AI supply chains, hallucinated promises, data overexposure, AI misuse, unethical recommendations, and bias-fueled liability - to appropriate safeguards. Focus on the top 3-4 AI threats most critical to your business and use the TaSM to outline safeguards for these high-priority risks, e.g.: - Identify: Audit systems and data usage to understand vulnerabilities. - Protect: Enforce policies, restrict access, and train employees on safe AI usage. - Detect: Monitor for unauthorized data uploads or unusual AI behavior. - Respond: Define incident response plans for managing AI-related breaches or misuse. - Recover: Develop plans to retrain models, address bias, or mitigate legal fallout.

So you think you know how to threat model? Many SOCs claim to do formal threat modeling (whether they really do is another story). But let’s talk about the right way–because a half-baked threat model can be worse than none at all, especially when it comes to organization risk. 𝟭. Introspection: Know your business–and its risk • Identify the crown jewels: Which assets, if compromised, would cripple your operations or reputation? • Spiral method: Envision a crime scene–except it hasn’t happened yet (hopefully). Start at your most critical points and circle outward, noting controls in place. • Map your processes: Understand your dependencies, supply chain links, and workflows to figure out where the real business risk lies. 𝟮. Extrospection: Know your threat landscape • Threat actors 101: Who’s targeting your vertical? How do they operate–ransomware, data exfil, or something else? • Outcomes & motives: Whether it's a quick payday or long-term espionage, each threat actor’s endgame shifts your risk profile. • Worst-case mindset: If they succeed, what’s the impact on revenue, reputation, or compliance? 𝟯. Union: Combine Business & Threat Risk • Introspection + Extrospection: Once you see your weaknesses and adversaries' strengths, theoretically set fire to your own org to find the flashpoints. • Prioritize by Risk: Not all threats matter equally. Tackle high-likelihood, high-impact scenarios first. • Feed it back: These insights drive your detection engineering–especially behavioral and sequential detections that address the most significant threats. 𝟰. Evolve: Threat Modeling is Never Done • Track & Iterate: Each exercise introduces new defenses (lowering some risks) and may uncover new attack paths (introducing others). • Stay Current: New business ops, acquisitions, or tech adoptions all shift your threat landscape. Revisit your model regularly. • Continuous Improvement: Capture lessons learned, adjust your controls, and refine your detection logic to stay in step with reality. Threat modeling isn’t just a one-off workshop–it’s a cycle that guides strategic security decisions and aligns detection capabilities with genuine business risk. How do you keep your threat model updated as the business and threat landscape evolve?

Ever wonder how companies like Rippling , Amazon or Meta build secure products at scale? Most teams wait until something breaks to think about security.That’s backwards. The smart ones — like Amazon, Meta, or Rippling — start with threat modeling. When I was at Rippling, this mindset was baked into how we built; not as a checklist, but as part of the design process. Here’s how to do it without any fancy tools: ✍️ 1. Map the System • Draw out the components of your app or feature. • Include APIs, user flows, databases, 3rd parties, etc. • Make sure you define trust boundaries (e.g. frontend ↔ backend, internal ↔ external). 🔍 2. Ask Key Questions Use frameworks like STRIDE or just ask: • What are we protecting? • What could go wrong? • Who might attack it? • How might they succeed? • What happens if they do? ⚠️ 3. Spot Threats • Look at entry points (login, uploads, APIs). • Think like an attacker: where’s the weak link? • Don’t forget non-obvious areas like audit logs or admin tools. ✅ 4. Mitigate + Document • Decide how you’ll reduce each risk. • Add controls: validation, auth, logging, rate limits, etc. • Track open threats like you track bugs — don’t just “note them.” That’s manual threat modeling : simple, powerful, and timeless. Now, if you want to automate and operationalize this across a fast-moving team? I use HackerScope (link in first comment). It lets you: • Visually map threat models • Collaborate with eng, product & security • Auto-track threats over time • Make a checklist of ToDos to ensure all the gaps are filled. It’s like having a living threat model inside your dev workflow. Security shouldn’t feel like homework. It should feel like design. #ThreatModeling #Cybersecurity #AppSec #HackerScope #SecureByDesign #StartupSecurity #EngineeringExcellence #ProductSecurity

Supply chain threat modeling isn't like modeling a web app. Your smart factory sensor? It has a microcontroller from a tier-3 supplier you've never heard of. That microcontroller uses silicon wafers from somewhere else. The firmware? Built on an open-source RTOS with dependencies you didn't audit. And, likely no surprise to many in the security space, most organizations can't see past their tier-1 suppliers. I've been writing about threat modeling for a bit, but supply chain modeling is different. It's not about data flow diagrams and trust boundaries within your control. It's about mapping dependencies across dozens of organizations, geographies, and points of failure you can't directly manage. Most of us remember the SolarWinds attack. 18,000 organizations compromised through a legitimate, digitally-signed update. Or Log4j, which earned a perfect 10.0 severity score and was embedded so deep in dependency chains that most companies didn't even know it was there. Most of us take for granted that the hundreds or thousands of parts in our products will just work together. Until they don't. In this article I walk through: 🌟 How to map nth-tier suppliers and create visibility beyond tier-1 🌟 Building threat scenarios that account for both APT actors AND natural disruptions 🌟 Practical mitigations from firmware signing to hardware validation pipelines 🌟 Why redundancy and modularity matter more than you think Because supply chain threat modeling isn't just "what can go wrong?" anymore. It's "what can go wrong three suppliers removed from us that we don't even know exists yet?" What's your biggest supply chain blind spot? Drop a comment and let me know what you're wrestling with. #threatmodeling #supplychain #cybersecurity #riskmanagement #sbom

Most security teams struggle to clearly articulate how their defenses align to real, material threats, especially when communicating with executives or boards. That’s why I created the OWASP Threat and Safeguard Matrix (TaSM). It’s a powerful, flexible framework that maps threats to safeguards in a way that makes sense to both security professionals and business leaders. Whether you’re doing threat modeling, preparing a board presentation, or building a cyber report card, TaSM gives you a clear, defensible strategy, even for emerging threats like AI. Check out the framework on OWASP's website: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/ePYVzPi And if you prefer a walkthrough, here’s my CISO Tradecraft® interview with G Mark Hardy: 🎥 https://lnkd.in/e4CDgJcs If you find it helpful, I’d love to hear your feedback or see how you might apply it in your organization.

𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗽𝘀 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗦𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗮𝘁 𝗡𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁. We’ve been diving deep into something we see botched way too often: 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴; with Farshad Abasi. Not the checkbox kind. Not the “here’s your 400-page PDF” kind. The kind that asks real questions and helps you actually build safer systems. Some key takeaways: 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗨𝘀𝗲𝗳𝘂𝗹... 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲 Architecture rarely changes from sprint to sprint. 𝗙𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗱𝗼. So, threat modeling absolutely has to go deeper into user stories, individual functions, and all those nasty edge cases. 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀? 𝗢𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗜𝗳 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 Loved this pragmatic approach, and it holds especially true for fast-paced environments: smartly filtering high-risk features using simple flags.  • Does it handle PII?  • Is it externally exposed?  • Is there business risk? If yes, model it. If not, move on. Simple, effective. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀: “𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻?” It’s not fancy. It’s not a complex framework. But it’s incredibly effective. And it’s also the question most teams skip. Just ask it and unlock ruthless mitigation prioritization! 𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘆, 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗦𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 The best tooling plugs right into your workflow and gives you 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁. No noise. No overwhelm. Just pure, actionable clarity. We need more of that. I’ll be honest: I am a pen and paper girl, so my preferred tool will always be the whiteboard. Final note: Threat modeling shouldn’t feel like a fire drill or a pointless formality. Done right, it helps you sleep better at night because you know you’ve thought through the nasties. And some insights from the week’s news: 𝗟𝗟𝗠 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗢𝗹𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗪𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀 EchoLeak, TokenBreak... clever names, but the fundamentals are the same old story: 𝗨𝗻𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗽𝘂𝘁. 𝗣𝗼𝗼𝗿 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴. Seriously, 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗦𝗲𝗰 𝟭𝟬𝟭 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴. This was all sparked by a fantastic conversation I had on Application Security Weekly Podcast https://lnkd.in/dTHwxgnP with Mike Shema, John Kinsella, and Farshad Abasi. If you’re in security or engineering, I’d genuinely love to hear: What’s actually helped you make threat modeling useful, and what have you completely stopped doing? And if you're looking to reflect deeper, this episode is a 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 packed with insights that cut through the noise. Let’s swap stories. #ThreatModeling #AppSec #CyberSecurity #LLMSecurity #DevSecOps #SecureByDesign #ShiftLeft #SecurityEngineering #EchoLeak #TokenBreak

🔐 PASTA Threat Modelling: Understanding the 7 Stages PASTA (Process for Attack Simulation and Threat Analysis) is a risk-centric threat modelling framework that aligns technical threats with business impact. It’s especially useful for complex, enterprise systems. Here’s a quick breakdown of the 7 stages of PASTA: 1️⃣ Define Business Objectives Understand what the organisation is trying to protect, including business goals, risk appetite, and compliance requirements. 2️⃣ Define the Technical Scope Identify applications, systems, data flows, and dependencies that fall within scope. 3️⃣ Application Decomposition Break down the system architecture to understand trust boundaries, entry points, assets, and data flows. 4️⃣ Threat Analysis Identify potential threat actors, attack vectors, and relevant threat intelligence. 5️⃣ Vulnerability Analysis Assess weaknesses in design, configuration, or implementation that threats could exploit. 6️⃣ Attack Modelling & Simulation Simulate real-world attack scenarios to understand how threats could materialise. 7️⃣ Risk Analysis & Management Prioritise risks based on likelihood and impact, and define mitigations aligned to business objectives. 💡 Why PASTA? It bridges the gap between security, engineering, and business, enabling informed risk-based decisions rather than checklist-driven security. #threatmodeling #cybersecurity #PASTA #appsec #riskmanagement #securebydesign #infosec #learnwithswetha

Be prepared for Mythos. Threat model today using Opus. Anthropic's Mythos found zero-day vulnerabilities that went undetected for years. When models reason about security at that level, you want your baseline already established. That's why I built tachi. A toolkit to automate the process of creating a threat model, scoring your risks, uncovering the compensating controls that already exist, and produce a CISO friendly boardroom report. tachi dispatches 12 specialized threat agents against your architecture description. It covers 11 threat categories: 6 STRIDE, 3 LLM-specific, and 2 agentic. New this week: MAESTRO layer mapping. The Cloud Security Alliance's seven-layer taxonomy for agentic AI. Every finding classified from foundation models to agent orchestration. Five commands give you: Structured threat model with countermeasures SARIF for CI/CD integration Attack trees for Critical and High findings Quantitative risk scores Professional PDF security report This doesn't replace expert level security reviews. But it automates the process of creating a baseline to review. And as reasoning models like Mythos mature, tachi provides the framework to harness them. Open source. Apache 2.0. 25+ stars in the first week. Link in the first comment.