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STRIDE Threat Model Overlay

Run the STRIDE MicroSim Fullscreen

About This MicroSim

A simple web-application Data Flow Diagram (Browser → Web Server → App Server → Database, plus an Auth Service) with the STRIDE threat model overlaid as clickable threats per element. STRIDE is six categories of threat:

  • Spoofing — impersonating someone
  • Tampering — modifying data
  • Repudiation — denying having done something
  • Information Disclosure — leaking data
  • Denial of Service — making the system unavailable
  • Elevation of Privilege — gaining unauthorized access

Click any element to see which threats apply, the threat description, and the standard mitigating control.

Embedding This MicroSim

<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/information-systems/sims/stride-threat-model-overlay/main.html"
        height="722px" width="100%" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Learning Objectives

By the end of this activity, students will be able to:

  1. Apply the STRIDE method to a small system architecture
  2. Identify at least one threat per category for each element type
  3. Propose a standard mitigating control for each identified threat
  4. Distinguish threats appropriate to data stores vs. processes vs. data flows

Suggested Activities

  1. Threat Hunt (15 min) — Without clicking, identify all threats you can; check against the canonical answer
  2. Mitigation Match (10 min) — For each threat, write the control before toggling Show Mitigations
  3. Architecture Drill (15 min) — Add a CDN in front of the web server; what new threats emerge?

References

  • Shostack, A. (2014). Threat Modeling: Designing for Security.
  • Microsoft. STRIDE Threat Model.