What is threat modeling and which method is commonly used in practice?

• A. Process to identify, characterize, and mitigate potential threats; commonly uses STRIDE or PASTA.
• B. A method for deploying security patches quickly.
• C. A cognitive approach to risk assessment unrelated to systems.
• D. A standard for code formatting.

Answer: (C)

Threat modeling is a structured approach to identifying and addressing security threats early in a system’s design. It starts by clarifying what needs to be protected—assets, data, and services—and then analyzes how attackers might compromise those elements through the system’s architecture and data flows. The goal is to surface potential threats, assess their potential impact, and determine mitigations before implementation, guiding safer design choices and prioritizing security fixes.

In practice, teams commonly use established methods to organize and standardize this analysis. STRIDE provides a taxonomy of threat types—Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information disclosure, Denial of service, Elevation of privilege—so designers can systematically consider different attack vectors. PASTA, on the other hand, is a risk-centric, seven-stage process that aligns threat identification with business impact and likelihood to help prioritize defenses. These methodologies help ensure threat modeling covers comprehensive scenarios and produces actionable security controls, rather than focusing on patch deployment, cognitive risk assessments, or coding style standards.