Reviewing attack trees

As with all threat models, there are visual representations that coincide with the respective threat models, and attack trees are no different. An attack tree is a logical and step-based way to represent a threat and how it would affect an organization or system. It starts with the initial vector; for example, a phishing email is received, and an employee falls for the malicious email. The next level of the tree shows the possible outcomes; so, in this case, one branch could be for the malicious user to gain access to the system or account. Another branch could be that credentials are compromised, and it would continue from there. If we wanted to see an example of a simple phishing attack tree from a risk perspective, it would look like this:

Figure 3.6 – Simple phishing risks attack chart

Again, the preceding example is strictly based around documenting risks, whereas you can also use attack trees to document how the attacks...