title: Automating risk analysis of software design models.
abstract: The growth of the internet and networked systems has exposed software to an increased amount of security threats. One of the responses from software developers to these threats is the introduction of security activities in the software development lifecycle. This paper describes an approach to reduce the need for costly human expertise to perform risk analysis in software, which is common in secure development methodologies, by automating threat modeling. Reducing the dependency on security experts aims at reducing the cost of secure development by allowing non-security-aware developers to apply secure development with little to no additional cost, making secure development more accessible. To automate threat modeling two data structures are introduced, identification trees and mitigation trees, to identify threats in software designs and advise mitigation techniques, while taking into account specification requirements and cost concerns. These are the components of our model for automated threat modeling, AutSEC. We validated AutSEC by implementing it in a tool based on data flow diagrams, from the Microsoft security development methodology, and applying it to VOMS, a grid middleware component, to evaluate our model's performance.
authors.affiliation: Computer Architecture and Operating Systems Department, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Campus UAB, Edifici Q, Bellaterra, 08193 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Maxime
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-1761-0326
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Frydman
authors.affiliation: The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), 1200-C Agora Drive, No. 232, Bel Air, MD 21014, USA.
authors.forename: Guifré
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ruiz
authors.affiliation: Computer Architecture and Operating Systems Department, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Campus UAB, Edifici Q, Bellaterra, 08193 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Heymann
authors.affiliation: Computer Architecture and Operating Systems Department, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Campus UAB, Edifici Q, Bellaterra, 08193 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: César
authors.affiliation: Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin, 1210 West Dayton Street, Madison, WI 53706-1685, USA.
authors.forename: Barton P
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D016494:Computer Security; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012985:Software Design