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Intermediate Estimated time: 2 min Category: Cybersecurity Published

Modelo de Amenazas

Summary

This guide explains what a threat model is and how to identify common threats in cloud and DevOps infrastructure environments. It is based on frameworks such as OWASP Top 10 for web/infrastructure applications and MITRE ATT&CK for adversary tactics.

Prerequisites

  • Basic knowledge of cybersecurity (vulnerabilities, common attacks).
  • Understanding of cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP) or on-premises infrastructure (Kubernetes, Docker).

What Is a Threat Model?

A threat model is a structured process for identifying, quantifying and prioritizing potential threats to a system. It helps you understand what can go wrong and how to mitigate it before it happens.

Key Components

  • Assets: What to protect (data, services, infrastructure).
  • Threats: What can harm the assets (hackers, malware, human error).
  • Vulnerabilities: Weaknesses that enable threats.
  • Mitigations: Controls to reduce risks.

Common Threats in Infrastructure

OWASP Top 10 for Infrastructure

  1. Broken Access Control: Unauthorized access to resources.
  2. Cryptographic Failures: Weak or misconfigured encryption.
  3. Injection: Attacks such as SQL injection in APIs or configs.
  4. Insecure Design: Architectures with inherent security flaws.
  5. Security Misconfiguration: Default or exposed configurations.
  6. Vulnerable Components: Dependencies with known CVEs.
  7. Identification and Authentication Failures: Weak authentication.
  8. Software and Data Integrity Failures: Manipulation of data or software.
  9. Security Logging and Monitoring Failures: Missing logs for detection.
  10. Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF): Attacks launched from the server.

MITRE ATT&CK for Infrastructure

Common tactics in cloud/K8s environments:

  • Reconnaissance: Port scanning, service enumeration.
  • Initial Access: Exploitation of exposed configs (e.g., public S3 buckets).
  • Execution: Remote code execution in containers.
  • Persistence: Backdoors in Docker images or K8s configs.
  • Privilege Escalation: From user to root in pods.
  • Defense Evasion: Hiding malware in ephemeral containers.

How to Create a Threat Model

Steps

  1. Define scope: Diagram the architecture (use draw.io or Mermaid).
  2. Identify assets: Sensitive data, APIs, databases.
  3. Enumerate threats: Use STRIDE (Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, Elevation of Privilege).
  4. Assess risks: Probability vs impact.
  5. Define mitigations: Technical controls and processes.

Tools

  • Microsoft Threat Modeling Tool: Free, guided.
  • OWASP Threat Dragon: Open source, web-based.
  • Mermaid for diagrams: Built into this documentation.

Examples

Simple threat diagram in K8s

graph TD
    A[User] --> B[API Server]
    B --> C[Pods]
    D[Hacker] --> E[Exploit vuln in API]
    E --> F[Cluster access]
    F --> G[Privilege escalation]

Mitigations: strict RBAC, Network Policies, admission controllers.

References