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Defining Threat Agents: Towards a More Complete Threat Analysis

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Abstract

There has been significant progress in defining and developing viable approaches to threat modeling and risk assessment techniques for a wide range of IT applications and computing environments. However, we observe that the focus of most studies continues to be on asset or vulnerability analysis, leaving the analysis of threat agents out of scope. The motivations of the attackers are predominantly economic, and the mitigation techniques and planning approaches depend heavily on the intent and resources available to the attackers. Although threat agent taxonomies may be simple, they are necessary for the development of both theoretical studies of vulnerabilities and practical analyses of the measures necessary for the remediation and mitigation. In this paper, we are taking a more careful look at the typology of threat agents that can provide considerable insights into the likelihood, seriousness, and specific nature of security attack. We also evaluate the context where these taxonomies operate. Finally, we describe Intel’s Threat Agent Library (TAL) and its applicability to various situations in dynamic threat analysis.

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© 2011 Vieweg+Teubner Verlag | Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH

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Casey, T., Koeberl, P., Vishik, C. (2011). Defining Threat Agents: Towards a More Complete Threat Analysis. In: Pohlmann, N., Reimer, H., Schneider, W. (eds) ISSE 2010 Securing Electronic Business Processes. Vieweg+Teubner. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-8348-9788-6_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-8348-9788-6_21

  • Publisher Name: Vieweg+Teubner

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-8348-1438-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-8348-9788-6

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