What is a simple way for users to mitigate threats to their applications

Author: Larry Conklin Contributor(s): Victoria Drake, Sven strittmatter • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Introduction This document describes a structured approach to application threat modeling that enables you to identify, quantify, and address the security risks associated with an application. Threat modeling looks at a system from a potential attacker’s perspective, as opposed to a defender’s viewpoint. Making threat modeling a core component of your The threat modeling process can be decomposed into three high level steps. Each step is documented as it is carried out. The resulting document is the threat model for the application. Step 1: Decompose the Application The first step in the threat modeling process is concerned with gaining an understanding of the application and how it interacts with external entities. This involves: • Creating use cases to understand how the application is used. • Identifying entry points to see where a potential attacker could interact with the application. • Identifying assets, i.e. items or areas that the attacker would be interested in. • Identifying trust levels that represent the access rights that the application will grant to external entities. This information is documented in a resulting Threat Model document. It is also used to produce data flow diagrams ( Step 2: Determine and Rank Threats Critical to the identification of threats is using a threat categorization methodology. A threat categorization such as Th...

OWASP/CheatSheetSeries • • • • • • • Cheatsheets Cheatsheets • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Threat Modeling Table of contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Threat Modeling Cheat Sheet Introduction Threat modeling is a structured approach of identifying and prioritizing potential threats to a system, and determining the value that potential mitigations would have in reducing or neutralizing those threats. This cheat sheet aims to provide guidance on how to create threat models for both existing systems or applications as well as new systems. You do not need to be a security expert in order to implement the techniques covered in this cheat sheet. All developers, software and system designers, and architects should strive to include threat modeling in their software development life cycle. Optimally, you will create your threat models and determine which mitigations are needed during an early stage of the development of a new system, application, or feature. Assessing potential threats during the design phase of your project can save significant resources that might be needed to refactor the project to include risk mitigations during a later phase of the project. When you produce a threat model, you will: • Document how data flows through a system to identify where the system might ...

• Share to Facebook • Share to Twitter • Share to Linkedin Sensitive information is stored and accessed digitally by businesses every day. While it's a lot more convenient for companies to have data stored digitally, unfortunately this also means these files are more vulnerable to attacks from hackers. Malicious users can gain access to a company’s data in several ways, including phishing, a method which takes advantage of unsuspecting employees as a gateway. Communicating regularly with your team about phishing attacks is critical. Most people in an organization learn from these mistakes, but it takes one compromised incident in order to put them on high alert. Having regular meetings about what a phishing attack might look like helps prepare your team in advance of a breach. You can reinforce these meetings by highlighting the consequences of these attacks not only for the company's reputation, but also for the security of customer information. Phishing sites regularly use similar-looking domains that mimic popular online sites your company may be using. Encourage the use of password vault programs like LastPass, which can store complex passwords and only works when the URL matches the stored URL. - 2. Change Your Passwords Regularly My team likes to switch them up every four months. By this point, we all know the switch dates by heart so we know when to expect them and change our documents. Regularly changing your passwords is one of the best lines of defense against ha...

In this article Applies to: • Windows 10 This topic provides an overview of some of the software and firmware threats faced in the current security landscape, and the mitigations that Windows 10 offers in response to these threats. For information about related types of protection offered by Microsoft, see Section Contents Describes the current nature of the security threat landscape, and outlines how Windows 10 is designed to mitigate software exploits and similar threats. Provides tables of configurable threat mitigations with links to more information. Product features such as Device Guard appear in Provides descriptions of Windows 10 mitigations that require no configuration—they're built into the operating system. For example, heap protections and kernel pool protections are built into Windows 10. Describes how mitigations in the Figure 1. Device protection and threat resistance as part of the Windows 10 security defenses The security threat landscape Today's security threat landscape is one of aggressive and tenacious threats. In previous years, malicious attackers mostly focused on gaining community recognition through their attacks or the thrill of temporarily taking a system offline. Since then, attacker's motives have shifted toward making money, including holding devices and data hostage until the owner pays the demanded ransom. Modern attacks increasingly focus on large-scale intellectual property theft; targeted system degradation that can result in financial ...

OWASP/CheatSheetSeries • • • • • • • Cheatsheets Cheatsheets • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • SQL Injection Prevention Table of contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • SQL Injection Prevention Cheat Sheet Introduction This article is focused on providing clear, simple, actionable guidance for preventing SQL Injection flaws in your applications. • the significant prevalence of SQL Injection vulnerabilities, and • the attractiveness of the target (i.e., the database typically contains all the interesting/critical data for your application). SQL Injection flaws are introduced when software developers create dynamic database queries constructed with string concatenation which includes user supplied input. To avoid SQL injection flaws is simple. Developers need to either: a) stop writing dynamic queries with string concatenation; and/or b) prevent user supplied input which contains malicious SQL from affecting the logic of the executed query. This article provides a set of simple techniques for preventing SQL Injection vulnerabilities by avoiding these two problems. These techniques can be used with practically any kind of programming language with any type of database. There are other types of databases, like XML databases, which can have similar problems (e.g., XPath and XQuery injection) and these techniques can be used to protect ...

The future is mobile. Not long ago, this resonated across the global business landscape as mobile users skyrocketed and the mobile industry stakeholders grew unprecedented. However, this great handheld innovation turned out to be a breeding ground for With recent security breaches like the Organizations worldwide perform much of their business processes – including confidential business – from their cell phones. This means a comprehensive With mobile app risks soaring, organizations need to focus on mobile app security to prevent threat actors from spying on their confidential or sensitive data. What is mobile app security? Mobile app security refers to securing As the apps have access to tons of confidential data, any breach that could compromise the data through unauthorized access and use must be avoided. Most of these attacks stem from common vulnerabilities in mobile apps and can bring your business down to its knees. Let’s look at some of these common vulnerabilities. Common mobile app security threats A mobile app is the easiest entry point for a threat attack. It's only sensible to learn more about the Weak server-side controls Most mobile apps have a client-server architecture, with the app stores like Google Play being the client. End-users interact with these clients to make purchases and view messages, alerts, and notifications. The server component is on the developer side and interacts with the mobile device via an API through the internet. This server part i...

In this article Applies to: • Windows 10 This topic provides an overview of some of the software and firmware threats faced in the current security landscape, and the mitigations that Windows 10 offers in response to these threats. For information about related types of protection offered by Microsoft, see Section Contents Describes the current nature of the security threat landscape, and outlines how Windows 10 is designed to mitigate software exploits and similar threats. Provides tables of configurable threat mitigations with links to more information. Product features such as Device Guard appear in Provides descriptions of Windows 10 mitigations that require no configuration—they're built into the operating system. For example, heap protections and kernel pool protections are built into Windows 10. Describes how mitigations in the Figure 1. Device protection and threat resistance as part of the Windows 10 security defenses The security threat landscape Today's security threat landscape is one of aggressive and tenacious threats. In previous years, malicious attackers mostly focused on gaining community recognition through their attacks or the thrill of temporarily taking a system offline. Since then, attacker's motives have shifted toward making money, including holding devices and data hostage until the owner pays the demanded ransom. Modern attacks increasingly focus on large-scale intellectual property theft; targeted system degradation that can result in financial ...

OWASP/CheatSheetSeries • • • • • • • Cheatsheets Cheatsheets • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Threat Modeling Table of contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Threat Modeling Cheat Sheet Introduction Threat modeling is a structured approach of identifying and prioritizing potential threats to a system, and determining the value that potential mitigations would have in reducing or neutralizing those threats. This cheat sheet aims to provide guidance on how to create threat models for both existing systems or applications as well as new systems. You do not need to be a security expert in order to implement the techniques covered in this cheat sheet. All developers, software and system designers, and architects should strive to include threat modeling in their software development life cycle. Optimally, you will create your threat models and determine which mitigations are needed during an early stage of the development of a new system, application, or feature. Assessing potential threats during the design phase of your project can save significant resources that might be needed to refactor the project to include risk mitigations during a later phase of the project. When you produce a threat model, you will: • Document how data flows through a system to identify where the system might ...

Author: Larry Conklin Contributor(s): Victoria Drake, Sven strittmatter • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Introduction This document describes a structured approach to application threat modeling that enables you to identify, quantify, and address the security risks associated with an application. Threat modeling looks at a system from a potential attacker’s perspective, as opposed to a defender’s viewpoint. Making threat modeling a core component of your The threat modeling process can be decomposed into three high level steps. Each step is documented as it is carried out. The resulting document is the threat model for the application. Step 1: Decompose the Application The first step in the threat modeling process is concerned with gaining an understanding of the application and how it interacts with external entities. This involves: • Creating use cases to understand how the application is used. • Identifying entry points to see where a potential attacker could interact with the application. • Identifying assets, i.e. items or areas that the attacker would be interested in. • Identifying trust levels that represent the access rights that the application will grant to external entities. This information is documented in a resulting Threat Model document. It is also used to produce data flow diagrams ( Step 2: Determine and Rank Threats Critical to the identification of threats is using a threat categorization methodology. A threat categorization such as Th...

The future is mobile. Not long ago, this resonated across the global business landscape as mobile users skyrocketed and the mobile industry stakeholders grew unprecedented. However, this great handheld innovation turned out to be a breeding ground for With recent security breaches like the Organizations worldwide perform much of their business processes – including confidential business – from their cell phones. This means a comprehensive With mobile app risks soaring, organizations need to focus on mobile app security to prevent threat actors from spying on their confidential or sensitive data. What is mobile app security? Mobile app security refers to securing As the apps have access to tons of confidential data, any breach that could compromise the data through unauthorized access and use must be avoided. Most of these attacks stem from common vulnerabilities in mobile apps and can bring your business down to its knees. Let’s look at some of these common vulnerabilities. Common mobile app security threats A mobile app is the easiest entry point for a threat attack. It's only sensible to learn more about the Weak server-side controls Most mobile apps have a client-server architecture, with the app stores like Google Play being the client. End-users interact with these clients to make purchases and view messages, alerts, and notifications. The server component is on the developer side and interacts with the mobile device via an API through the internet. This server part i...