STRIDE (security)
STRIDE is a model of threats developed by Praerit Garg and Loren Kohnfelder at Microsoft[1] for identifying computer security threats.[2] It provides a mnemonic for security threats in six categories.[3]
The threats are:
- Spoofing
- Tampering
- Repudiation
- Information disclosure (privacy breach or data leak)
- Denial of service
- Elevation of privilege[4]
The STRIDE was initially created as part of the process of threat modeling. STRIDE is a model of threats, used to help reason and find threats to a system. It is used in conjunction with a model of the target system that can be constructed in parallel. This includes a full breakdown of processes, data stores, data flows and trust boundaries.[5]
Today it is often used by security experts to help answer the question "what can go wrong in this system we're working on?"
Each threat is a violation of a desirable property for a system:
Threat | Desired property |
---|---|
Spoofing | Authenticity |
Tampering | Integrity |
Repudiation | Non-repudiability |
Information disclosure | Confidentiality |
Denial of Service | Availability |
Elevation of Privilege | Authorization |
Notes on the threats
Repudiation is unusual because it's a threat when viewed from a security perspective, and a desirable property of some privacy systems, for example, Goldberg's "Off the Record" messaging system. This is a useful demonstration of the tension that security design analysis must sometimes grapple with.
Elevation of Privilege is often called escalation of privilege, or privilege escalation. They are synonymous.
See also
- Attack tree – another approach to security threat modeling, stemming from dependency analysis
- Cyber security and countermeasure
- DREAD (risk assessment model) – another mnemonic for security threats
- OWASP – organization devoted to improving web application security through education
- CIA also known as AIC – another mnemonic for a security model to build security in IT systems
References
- Shostack, Adam. ""The Threats To Our Products"". Microsoft SDL Blog. Microsoft. Retrieved 18 August 2018.
- Kohnfelder, Loren; Garg, Praerit (April 1, 1999). "The threats to our products". Microsoft Interface. Retrieved 18 August 2018.
- "The STRIDE Threat Model". Microsoft. Microsoft.
- Guzman, Aaron; Gupta, Aditya (2017). IoT Penetration Testing Cookbook: Identify Vulnerabilities and Secure your Smart Devices. Packt Publishing. pp. 34–35. ISBN 978-1-78728-517-0.
- Shostack (2014). Threat Modeling: Designing for Security. Wiley. pp. 61–64. ISBN 978-1118809990.