Risks¶
A risk is the detriment arising from an attacker launching an attack, in the form of a threat, exploiting a system weakness, in the form of a vulnerability. Associated with each risk is a misuse case. This describes how the attacker (or attackers) behind the risk’s threat exploits the risk’s vulnerability to realise the risk.
The current status of Risk Analysis can be quickly ascertained by viewing the Risk Analysis model. This displays the current risks, the artifacts contributing to the risk, and the artifacts which potentially mitigate it.
Adding, updating, and deleting a risk¶
- Select the Risk/Risks menu to open the Risks table, and click on the Add button to open the Risk dialog form.
- Enter a risk name and select a threat and vulnerability from the respective combo boxes. A risk is valid only if the threat and vulnerability exist within the same environment (or environments).
- Clicking on the environment name in the environment card populates the risk details card. The impact folder shows qualitative risk rating, and the mitigated and un-mitigated risk score associated with each risk response.
- Before a risk can be created, an associated Misuse Case needs to be defined. To do this, click on the Misuse Case folder.
- Most of the fields in the Misuse Case form have already been completed based on the risk analysis carried out up to this point. Enter a scenario which describes how the attacker realises the associated risk, i.e. carries out the threat by exploiting the vulnerability. The scenario written should be written in line with the attributes and values displayed.
- Click on the Create button to add the new risk.
- Existing risks can be modified by clicking on the risk in the Risks table, making the necessary changes, and clicking on the Update button.
- To delete a risk, click the Delete button next to the risk to be removed in the Risks table. If any artifacts are dependent on this risk then a dialog box stating these dependencies are displayed. The user has the option of selecting Yes to remove the risk dependencies and the risk itself, or No to cancel the deletion.
Risk Analysis model¶
Risk Analysis models show the contribution different design elements make to a risk, as shown below:
Risk Analysis models can be viewed by clicking on the Model/Risks Model menu, and selecting the environment to view the environment for.
By changing the environment name in the environment combo box, the risk analysis model for a different environment can be viewed.
The orientation of the model can be changed by layout radio button. By default, the orientation is set to Vertical but, if you are creating a kill chain that connects risk to threats or vulnerabilities, you might find a Horizontal layout helpful.
By clicking on a model element, information about that artifact can be viewed.
The risk analysis model can also be filtered by artifact type and artifact type. Filtering by type displays only the artifacts of the filtered type, and its directly associated assets. Filtering by artifact name displays only the filtered artifact, and its directly associated artifacts.
For details on how to print risk analysis models as SVG files, see Generating Documentation.