Cloud Threat Modeling

Threat modeling serves to identify threats and preventive measures for a system or application. However, threat modeling is one security methodology that has not matched the general rate of cloud adoption, due to a gap in guidance, expertise, and applicability of the practice. Threat modeling for cloud systems expands on standard threat modeling to account for unique cloud services. It allows organizations to further security discussions and assess their security controls and mitigation decisions.

This document from the Top Threats Working Group attempts to bridge the gap between threat modeling and the cloud. To that end, this publication provides crucial guidance to help identify threat modeling security objectives, set the scope of assessments, decompose systems, identify threats, identify design vulnerabilities, develop mitigations and controls, and communicate a call-to-action. Central lessons include the benefits of threat modeling, the unique knowledge and considerations required when threat modeling in the cloud, and how to create a cloud threat model. Example threat modeling cards are provided and can be used by your team for a more gamified approach.