Imported from sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills (
skills/threat-modeling/SKILL.md). Install upstream withnpx skills add sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills --skill threat-modeling. Copyright stays with the author (MIT).
Threat Modeling
Identify and mitigate security threats during system design.
When to Use This Skill
Use this skill when:
- Designing a new system, service, or feature
- Making significant architectural changes to existing systems
- Onboarding a new third-party integration or dependency
- Preparing for security audits or compliance reviews
- Responding to a security incident to improve defenses
- Reviewing infrastructure changes that affect trust boundaries
Prerequisites
- System architecture documentation or design diagrams
- Access to development and operations teams for context
- Understanding of the system's data classification (PII, PHI, financial, etc.)
- OWASP Threat Dragon or Microsoft Threat Modeling Tool (optional but helpful)
- Whiteboard or diagramming tool for collaborative sessions
STRIDE Methodology
| Threat | Description | Property Violated | Mitigation Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spoofing | Pretending to be another user or system | Authentication | MFA, mTLS, API key validation, certificate pinning |
| Tampering | Modifying data in transit or at rest | Integrity | HMAC, digital signatures, authenticated integrity checks, tamper-evident logs |
| Repudiation | Denying having performed an action | Non-repudiation | Audit logging, digital signatures, tamper-evident logs |
| Information Disclosure | Exposing data to unauthorized parties | Confidentiality | Encryption (TLS, AES), access controls, data masking |
| Denial of Service | Making service unavailable | Availability | Rate limiting, autoscaling, CDN, circuit breakers |
| Elevation of Privilege | Gaining unauthorized higher access | Authorization | RBAC, principle of least privilege, input validation |
STRIDE Worksheet Template
# stride-worksheet.yaml - Fill out one per component/trust boundary crossing
component:
name: "API Gateway"
owner: "Platform Team"
data_classification: "Confidential"
trust_boundary: "External -> Internal"
threats:
- id: T001
category: Spoofing
description: "Attacker forges JWT tokens to impersonate users"
attack_vector: "Stolen signing key or weak algorithm (HS256 with guessable secret)"
likelihood: Medium
impact: Critical
risk_score: 15 # likelihood(3) x impact(5)
existing_controls:
- "JWT validation on every request"
- "RS256 algorithm with rotated keys"
gaps:
- "No token binding to device/IP"
recommended_mitigations:
- "Use a supported proof-of-possession protocol when required; a copied claim alone does not bind a token"
- "Implement short-lived tokens (15 min) with refresh"
- "Monitor for token reuse from different IPs"
status: "Mitigated (partial)"
owner: "Auth Team"
- id: T002
category: Tampering
description: "Man-in-the-middle modifies API requests"
attack_vector: "Compromised network between client and gateway"
likelihood: Low
impact: High
risk_score: 8
existing_controls:
- "TLS 1.3 enforced"
- "HSTS enabled"
gaps: []
recommended_mitigations:
- "Certificate pinning for mobile clients"
status: "Mitigated"
owner: "Platform Team"
- id: T003
category: Information Disclosure
description: "Verbose error messages leak internal details"
attack_vector: "Triggering errors returns stack traces, internal IPs, DB schema"
likelihood: High
impact: Medium
risk_score: 12
existing_controls:
- "Generic error pages in production"
gaps:
- "Some microservices return raw exceptions"
recommended_mitigations:
- "Centralized error handling middleware"
- "Error response schema validation"
status: "Open"
owner: "Backend Team"
- id: T004
category: Denial of Service
description: "API rate limiting bypass through distributed requests"
attack_vector: "Botnet sending requests below per-IP threshold"
likelihood: Medium
impact: High
risk_score: 12
existing_controls:
- "Per-IP rate limiting at WAF"
gaps:
- "No aggregate rate limiting"
- "No bot detection"
recommended_mitigations:
- "Add aggregate rate limiting per endpoint"
- "Deploy bot detection (Cloudflare Bot Management)"
- "Implement circuit breaker pattern"
status: "Open"
owner: "Platform Team"
- id: T005
category: Elevation of Privilege
description: "IDOR allows accessing other users' data"
attack_vector: "Manipulating resource IDs in API calls"
likelihood: Medium
impact: Critical
risk_score: 15
existing_controls:
- "Authentication required"
gaps:
- "Authorization checks inconsistent across endpoints"
recommended_mitigations:
- "Enforce ownership checks on all resource access"
- "Opaque IDs reduce guessing but never replace object-level authorization"
- "Add authorization integration tests"
status: "Open"
owner: "Backend Team"
Data Flow Diagram
Text-Based DFD Notation
Trust Boundary: Internet
==========================
|
[External User]
|
HTTPS/443
|
==========================
Trust Boundary: DMZ
==========================
|
(WAF / CDN)
|
[API Gateway]---->[Auth Service]--->[Identity DB]
|
==========================
Trust Boundary: Internal
==========================
|
[App Service]
/ \
/ \
[Cache] [Message Queue]
|
[Worker Service]
|
==========================
Trust Boundary: Data
==========================
|
[Primary DB]--->[Replica DB]
|
[Object Store]
Legend:
[Box] = Process
(Parens) = External entity / proxy
==== = Trust boundary
---> = Data flow
Threat Model Concept Sketch (JSON; not an importable Threat Dragon model)
{
"summary": {
"title": "E-Commerce Platform",
"owner": "Security Team",
"description": "Threat model for the e-commerce API platform"
},
"detail": {
"diagrams": [
{
"title": "API Data Flow",
"diagramType": "STRIDE",
"cells": [
{
"type": "tm.Actor",
"name": "Web Client",
"threats": []
},
{
"type": "tm.Process",
"name": "API Gateway",
"threats": ["T001", "T002", "T003", "T004"]
},
{
"type": "tm.Process",
"name": "Order Service",
"threats": ["T005"]
},
{
"type": "tm.Store",
"name": "Orders Database",
"threats": ["T006"]
},
{
"type": "tm.Boundary",
"name": "DMZ"
},
{
"type": "tm.Boundary",
"name": "Internal Network"
}
]
}
]
}
}
Threat Library
# threat-library.yaml - Reusable threat patterns
categories:
authentication:
- id: TL-AUTH-001
name: "Credential stuffing"
description: "Attacker uses leaked credential databases to attempt logins"
applicable_to: ["login endpoints", "API authentication"]
mitigations: ["MFA", "rate limiting", "credential breach monitoring", "CAPTCHA"]
- id: TL-AUTH-002
name: "Session hijacking"
description: "Attacker steals session tokens via XSS or network sniffing"
applicable_to: ["web applications", "APIs with session tokens"]
mitigations: ["HttpOnly cookies", "TLS", "session binding", "short TTL"]
- id: TL-AUTH-003
name: "OAuth token theft"
description: "Access tokens stolen from logs, URLs, or insecure storage"
applicable_to: ["OAuth/OIDC integrations"]
mitigations: ["PKCE", "short-lived tokens", "token binding", "secure storage"]
injection:
- id: TL-INJ-001
name: "SQL injection"
description: "Malicious SQL in user input executes unauthorized queries"
applicable_to: ["database-backed endpoints", "search functionality"]
mitigations: ["parameterized queries", "ORM", "input validation", "WAF"]
- id: TL-INJ-002
name: "Command injection"
description: "User input passed to system commands without sanitization"
applicable_to: ["file processing", "system administration features"]
mitigations: ["avoid shell commands", "input allowlisting", "sandboxing"]
- id: TL-INJ-003
name: "SSRF (Server-Side Request Forgery)"
description: "Attacker makes server send requests to internal resources"
applicable_to: ["URL fetching features", "webhook handlers", "PDF generators"]
mitigations: ["URL allowlisting", "network segmentation", "metadata endpoint blocking"]
supply_chain:
- id: TL-SC-001
name: "Dependency confusion"
description: "Malicious package with internal name published to public registry"
applicable_to: ["npm, pip, maven projects using private packages"]
mitigations: ["namespace scoping", "registry prioritization", "SBOM monitoring"]
- id: TL-SC-002
name: "Compromised CI/CD pipeline"
description: "Attacker injects malicious code through build system compromise"
applicable_to: ["all software builds"]
mitigations: ["SLSA compliance", "signed commits", "ephemeral builders", "provenance"]
data:
- id: TL-DATA-001
name: "Unencrypted data at rest"
description: "Sensitive data stored without encryption on disk or in database"
applicable_to: ["databases", "object storage", "backups"]
mitigations: ["AES-256 encryption", "KMS-managed keys", "encrypted volumes"]
- id: TL-DATA-002
name: "PII exposure in logs"
description: "Personal data written to application or infrastructure logs"
applicable_to: ["all services handling PII"]
mitigations: ["log sanitization", "structured logging", "PII detection scanning"]
Risk Scoring Matrix
Likelihood Rating
| Score | Level | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Very Low | Requires nation-state resources; no known exploits |
| 2 | Low | Requires significant expertise and specific conditions |
| 3 | Medium | Moderately skilled attacker with available tools |
| 4 | High | Script-kiddie level; public exploits available |
| 5 | Very High | Trivial to exploit; automated scanning detects it |
Impact Rating
| Score | Level | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Negligible | No data exposure; cosmetic only |
| 2 | Minor | Limited data exposure; single user affected |
| 3 | Moderate | Significant data exposure; service degradation |
| 4 | Major | Large-scale data breach; extended outage |
| 5 | Critical | Complete system compromise; regulatory breach |
Risk Matrix
Impact -> 1 2 3 4 5
Likelihood
5 Medium High High Critical Critical
4 Low Medium High High Critical
3 Low Low Medium High High
2 Info Low Low Medium High
1 Info Info Low Low Medium
Risk Treatment Decisions
risk_treatment:
critical: # Score >= 20
action: "Immediate remediation required"
sla: "24 hours"
approval: "CISO"
high: # Score 12-19
action: "Remediation in current sprint"
sla: "1 week"
approval: "Security Lead"
medium: # Score 6-11
action: "Remediation in next sprint"
sla: "1 month"
approval: "Team Lead"
low: # Score 2-5
action: "Track and address in backlog"
sla: "1 quarter"
approval: "Team Lead"
info: # Score 1
action: "Accept risk and document"
sla: "None"
approval: "Team Lead"
Tool setup and review automation
Use the version-matched Threat Dragon documentation and verified official release artifacts for local installation. Bind any web interface to loopback; supply private generated configuration secrets through an approved secret mechanism. The worksheet and JSON above are conceptual inputs, not a complete Threat Dragon import schema or container configuration.
For CI, use a trusted parser implementation with a pinned YAML dependency and read-only token. Discover model files with a safe file API rather than interpolating filenames into Python source. Validate object/list types, unique threat IDs, numeric likelihood/impact bounds, calculated scores, owners, evidence and status enums. Fail on malformed files and an unexpectedly empty inventory. Evaluate status and score from the same parsed threat record: grepping separate YAML lines cannot associate them. Publish only aggregate counts; threat descriptions and model files may expose internal architecture. Required human review must be enforced by branch policy, not a warning-only shell exit. Do not execute embedded model contents.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Cause | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Threat model sessions are unproductive | Participants don't understand the system | Share architecture docs before the session; include a system walkthrough |
| Too many threats identified | Scope too broad | Focus on one component or trust boundary per session |
| Threats are too vague | No structured methodology | Use STRIDE per element; fill in the worksheet template for each |
| Team doesn't follow up on findings | No ownership or tracking | Assign each threat to a team with SLA; track in issue tracker |
| Threat model becomes stale | No trigger to update | Require review on architecture changes (CI/CD gate on diagram changes) |
| Disagreements on risk scores | Subjective scoring | Use the scoring matrix consistently; calibrate with historical incidents |
Best Practices
- Integrate threat modeling into the SDLC at the design phase
- Review threat models when architecture changes occur
- Include developers, ops, and security in sessions
- Use the threat library to ensure consistent coverage
- Document all risk acceptance decisions with rationale
- Track threats in the same system as other work items
- Conduct annual reviews of all active threat models
- Start with the most critical data flows and expand
- Keep sessions timeboxed (90 minutes maximum)
- Maintain a living threat library updated with new patterns
Related Skills
- sast-scanning (
sast-scanning) - Code analysis - penetration-testing (
penetration-testing) - Validation of threat model findings - incident-response (
incident-response) - Response when threats materialize
Limitations
- Apply guidance only within authorized scope; test destructive steps in non-production first.
- Docs-only import: upstream scripts and templates not bundled.
Example
# Read-only first: inventory before any active step.
which <tool> && <tool> --help | head -n 20
Adapted from BagelHole/DevOps-Security-Agent-Skills (MIT); frontmatter, When to Use/Limitations, and safety boundaries added for upstream compliance. Docs-only import: helper scripts and templates not bundled.
Scoring and control limitations
Use one agreed numeric scale (likelihood and impact 1–5, product 1–25); the qualitative matrix and remediation dates are illustrative policy suggestions and must be reconciled before use. Worksheet likelihood labels are not consistently the matrix labels; explicitly map them before calculating scores. A claim of mitigation needs evidence and residual risk/acceptance owner, not a status field. TLS/HSTS, signatures and audit logs address different properties; plain checksums do not resist an attacker who can replace both data and checksum, and logs alone do not establish legal non-repudiation. PKCE protects authorization-code exchange, not an already stolen bearer access token. Include repudiation threats as well as all other STRIDE categories, assets, trust boundaries and abuse cases; a tool diagram or a sample risk score is not an exhaustive assessment.
