Threat Modeling: Designing for Security

Chapter 13Web and Cloud Threats

In many ways, threat modeling for the web and cloud are very much like threat modeling for anything else, but these unique environments have some recurring threats, which are covered in this chapter.

This chapter is organized into web threats, cloud threats, cloud provider threats, and mobile threats. Web threats are broken into website threats, web browser, and plugin threats. Many of the cloud threats are expressed with respect to infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). It closes with a section on mobile threats.

Web Threats

The web is composed of a simple and powerful set of protocols and languages. It has become a cliché to say that it has changed everything. It's easy to forget that the web is software like other software. Although you might assume that you need to threat model it in some new ways, the truth is that it's like most other software, so techniques such as STRIDE and attack trees work well for web technologies.

Website Threats

Public websites receive large amounts of scrutiny, and suffer from all that the world can throw at them. The classic STRIDE threats all apply, as do a slew of web-specific attacks that happen when you forget that there's a trust boundary between them and the apparently nice doggy that is wagging its tail and slobbering in remarkably cleverly formed SQL in your forms and JavaScript in your URLs in order to cause harm.

Usually, threats such as SQL injections and XSS are handled ...