When choosing a threat modeling software, businesses need to have a clear understanding of long-term security goals and take into consideration who will be using and benefiting most from it. It’s essential to identify and understand these roles so you can select a threat modeling solution that will cater to your needs.
For example, security professionals can benefit from a solution that provides extensive technical outputs along with a customizable and comprehensive threat library. Meanwhile, C-level executives can have visibility into their entire organizational attack surface enabling them to make impactful decisions. The DevOps team needs to consider possible threats and risks during the development of applications, not after.
Ideally, threat modeling software should analyze the needs of all roles, as not all software is created equally. Here are four key software features businesses should look for to benefit key stakeholders.
4 Key Features To Consider When Choosing a Threat Modeling Software:
1. Threat Model Templates
A threat modeling software that allows architects, developers, and security analysts to quickly build and replicate threat models can save time and resources. Users can save threat models as templates for reusability and scalability.
Solutions with built-in threat model templates make the threat modeling process more accessible and improve collaboration. Teams can share templates to speed up collaborative efforts and work together to build onto existing models.
2. Threat Model Diagrams
When choosing a threat modeling software, it is important to consider the type of flow diagram being used to display information. The most common type is the data flow diagram, a high-level visualization of how an application works within a system to move, store, and manipulate data. One downfall to this type of layout, however, is that it was originally built to deliver engineering information so it’s not as functional to the complexities of threat modeling processes as other diagrams.
A recommended alternative for developers is the process flow diagram. These diagrams require fewer documentations and are very similar to the way an attacker would interact with the system. Process flow diagrams are also easier for non-security professionals to understand and take action on, adding security benefits to C-level decision makers as well as CISOs and DevOps team members.
Comparison: Threat Model Diagram: Data Flow Diagrams vs Process Flow Diagrams
3. Attack Surface Analysis
An organization’s attack surface is the total sum of vulnerabilities in a given device, application, or network that are accessible to a hacker. Attack surface analysis is a feature that can provide users with valuable insights into attacker behavior, improving cyber risk management.
The goal of reducing an organization’s attack surface to eliminate opportunities for attackers is essential to all businesses. Choosing a software that provides a comprehensive attack surface analysis will provide a data-driven approach to decision-making from the development, operational, and executive levels.
CISOs will be able to make quantifiable and measurable decisions to reduce the overall cyber risks, while CFOs and board members can also make executive decisions based on presented analytics.
4. Automated Threat Modeling
Another key feature to consider when choosing a threat modeling software is automation. In our digital era, automation has become a trending must-have feature that ultimately saves businesses time and resources while making work easier for employees.
Automated threat modeling cuts the threat model creation time by automatically updating central threat libraries and existing threat models with recent information. This improves upon the slow process of updating past threat models manually.
Keep in mind that not every threat modeling software has automated functionalities; so it’s critical to do your research before investing in software that might require more manual work than expected.
ThreatModeler is the security industry’s #1 automated threat modeling tool for enterprise-wide security. Our threat modeling platform provides teams of any size the ability to scale their threat modeling program and gain a deeper understanding of the attack surface.
See why our threat modeling software is the ideal solution for bringing security features to all key stakeholders. Speak to our experts and book a demo.