Threat Analysis

What Is an Attack Surface?

An attack surface refers to all the points, interfaces, and avenues through which a bad actor can try to enter or extract information from a system, network, or application. These include:

• Cloud infrastructure: Components of cloud-based systems, including configurations, access controls, and data storage
• Software: Applications, operating systems, and software dependencies
• Network interfaces: Network devices, ports, protocols, and services
• Web applications: Websites, web services, and web-based platforms
• Hardware devices: Physical devices connected to a network, such as IoT devices, servers, routers, and other hardware components
• Endpoints: Devices (computers, smartphones, tablets) that connect to a network
• Human factors: Human users are often targeted through social engineering, phishing attacks, or other methods
• Third-party services or integrations: Dependencies on external services or integrations that may introduce vulnerabilities if those services lack proper security measures

What Is Threat Analysis?

Threat analysis involves identifying potential threats, understanding their severity and potential impact, and developing mitigation plans to address them. Threat analysis starts with data from a variety of sources, including commercial threat feeds, industry reports, and internal intelligence. Threat actors are identified, assessed, and prioritized in the context of business-specific factors to properly evaluate their potential consequences and likelihood of impact. An analysis concludes with mitigation strategies that may include technical, administrative, or physical security controls.

What Are the Types of Threat Analysis?

Threat analyses are primarily attack-centric, software-centric, or checklist-based. Attack-centric analysis considers threat landscapes from an attacker’s point of view as to which assets are valuable and vulnerable. Software-centric analysis focuses on vulnerabilities in application design and code. Checklist-based analyses are often simpler and less costly to execute, with trade-offs in analytical detail and prioritization capabilities.

Why Is It Important?

As cyber threats proliferate and evolve, threat analysis has become an increasingly important element of a strong cybersecurity strategy. It enables organizational leaders to understand their adversaries and weaknesses, address application threats proactively, and respond more effectively to incidents while minimizing fallout from successful attacks. Security teams operating without adequate threat analyses are at much higher risk of being exposed to attacks or security flaws, which can compound mitigation efforts and costs.

What Are Some Key Considerations?

Threat analysis helps reduce cyber risk in general, but its primary benefit is to help organizations stay ahead of threats. Other benefits are seen in proactive measures, such as preventing attacks by closing vulnerabilities prior to exploitation and optimizing incident response and resource allocation to facilitate business continuity and cost savings. However, threat analysis is often limited to available data and susceptible to bias in scope and focus. Threat analyses must also be updated on an ongoing basis to remain valid and actionable. Most importantly, threat analysis must be complemented by tangible action for its benefits to be realized.

How Is It Related to Threat Modeling?

Threat analysis is essentially a component of threat modeling, informing software development lifecycles to help keep applications secure by design. Conducting threat analyses on new and existing systems provides organizations with a full view of internal and external attack surfaces, risks, and other vulnerabilities.

Closing

Threat analysis is a vital part of threat modeling practices and a critical component to protecting digital estates. As cyber threats grow in number and sophistication, leveraging up-to-date analysis will play an increasingly important role in strengthening security strategies and maintaining business continuity.