Threat Modeling is a structured security analysis process that systematically identifies potential threats, vulnerabilities, and attack vectors against a system, application, or process. It establishes a proactive approach for understanding security risks during the design phase, enabling architects and developers to implement appropriate safeguards before systems are deployed into production.
Threat Modeling transforms security from reactive patching to proactive design by providing methodical approaches for analyzing how attackers might compromise systems. It typically implements formal methodologies including STRIDE (Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, Elevation of Privilege), attack trees, or PASTA (Process for Attack Simulation and Threat Analysis) that guide security analysis across diverse contexts. These structured approaches ensure comprehensive threat identification while avoiding tunnel vision that focuses on familiar risks while missing novel attack vectors.
Contemporary threat modeling has evolved beyond isolated security activities to become an integrated component of secure development lifecycles, with models created and refined throughout the solution development process. Leading organizations implement threat modeling frameworks that combine architectural analysis, attack simulation, control validation, and continuous reassessment throughout the system lifecycle. These frameworks scale modeling depth based on system criticality and threat exposure, ensuring proportional security analysis that balances thoroughness with delivery velocity. When effectively integrated within architecture and development processes, threat modeling becomes a foundational security practice that identifies risks when they are least expensive to address, creating security by design rather than security by remediation. As systems grow increasingly complex while threat landscapes continuously evolve, threat modeling has become essential for creating inherently secure architectures that anticipate and address security risks throughout the development lifecycle rather than discovering them through production incidents.
« Back to Glossary Index