Threat modeling approaches and tools for securing architectural designs of an e-banking application

Software is the most important line of defense for protecting critical information assets such as in e-banking. The continuous increase in sophistication and in volume of cyber security attacks provides compelling reasons for enhancing the security of software applications that control critical assets. There is a broad acceptance that in order to produce dependable and secure applications, developers need to "build security in" throughout the software development lifecycle (SDL). Threat Modeling is essential for building security in at all the SDL stages and in particular at the design stage. In the last few years, several innovative approaches to threat modeling have emerged and recently some supporting tools have become available. Using the Microsoft SDL tool as an example, this paper elaborates, illustrates and discusses the threat modeling process and its usefulness to the architectural designs of an e-banking application. This paper also seeks for a critical reflection on different approaches and tools, accounting for the complexity and difficulty of the process.