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An (in-)formal Introduction To Attack Defense Trees

by Benjamin Coban

It is widely known that the security of a system seen as property is not static. Therefore, there cannot exist a general algorithm deciding whether or not a given system is secure in its sense. IT-Security Architects and Engineers are stuck with persistent research of bug reports of the technology the respective enterprise is using. In the industry, IT security is one use case of many others. The types of systems to examine vary depending on context. For instance, the construction of a museum is considered as a system and it is of interest to guarantee that the objects, stored in this kind of facility, are considered safe and sound. In consequence, it is urgent to establish a formal model for system description and security evaluation. There are various challenges to overcome, for instance:

• What are the best defensive measures to invest in?
• How can it be decided whether a defensive measure from the past is still necessary?
• How can newly discovered attacks be efficiently documented?