Threat modeling helps in identifying, prioritizing and proactively preventing threats thereby reducing the probability of possible breaches. This practice provides significant, quantifiable, valuable, and actionable output to stakeholders across the organization.
The practice of threat modeling has established a strong foothold in the cybersecurity world as a recognized discipline in driving end-to-end IT security policy. With every new device or system, a business adds to its attack surface, new internal and external threats arise, causing IT professionals and executive leaders to become increasingly concerned with the safety of their data and assets.
Decision makers like CISOs and IT managers commonly use threat modeling tools to justify investments in security when discussing IT budgeting and policy creation. New business insights can be leveraged for C-level meetings, helping IT professionals gain a seat and be heard at the executive table. Insights like potential risks and business impacts of new software, real-time threat intelligence for strategic decision-making, and the alignment of mitigation strategy with budget allocations are all valuable to key stakeholders.
Related Post: Threat Modeling Benefits for the CISO and Key Stakeholders
A Brief History of Threat Modeling
In order to better understand the evolution of threat modeling, we can look into a brief history of how the solution came about. During the early 1960s, the advancement of shared computing had engineers and computer scientists seeking to uncover potential threats that could arise with this new technology. When attempting to understand these gaps in security, scientists created threat models that would continue to develop into tools businesses and other entities use today.
As the process continuously improved over time, solutions were developed to make platforms more accessible for non-technical staff, provide insights to key stakeholders using data analytics and automation, as well as shorten the implementation and maintenance processes for easier adoption of technologies into business systems.
How Threat Modeling Works
Threat modeling is an adaptable procedure that organizations can apply to software and application development projects, IT ecosystems, cloud environments, home security, and virtually any system where cyber threats can exist.
With software development, for example, application threat modeling can be applied to continuously expose new attack vectors as developers add more enhancements to the system. The process examines, diagnoses, and addresses threats in real-time, aiding project success by minimizing the attack surface and reducing the number of security issues that could slow down development. Organizations can significantly reduce costs and resources by identifying and preparing for threats during the design stage of the software development life cycle, as opposed to making fixes much later in the SDLC.
Learn More: Threat Modeling 101: How Can It Help My Business?
Other innovations developed to improve the procedure of threat modeling include:
- Intelligent Threat Engine
- Centralized Threat Library
- Threat Intelligence Framework
- Automated Threat Tree Creation
- Chained Threat Models
ThreatModeler is a solution that delivers all of these powerful tools and provides enterprises with a holistic view of their attack surface of an organization, enabling you to minimize the overall risk.
ThreatModeler is the cybersecurity industry’s #1 automated threat modeling platform and two-time winner of the Cybersecurity Excellence Award (2017-2018). They were also identified by Gartner in their “Hype Cycle for Application Security, 2017” report¹. This complete end-to-end solution offers numerous tools, data and analytics, charts and dashboards, quick-start implementation and integration services, and dedicated support to keep your business secure for the long-run.
To become proactive rather than reactive against cybersecurity threats, learn more about threat modeling as a service through the ThreatModeler Datasheet
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¹ https://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/12/prweb15027487.htm