Hyökkäyspuumallit

Hyökkäyspuumallit, known in English as attack trees, are a visual modeling technique used in security engineering and risk analysis. They are a type of hierarchical diagram that represents the possible ways an attacker can achieve a specific goal. The root of the tree represents the attacker's ultimate objective, such as "gain unauthorized access to the server" or "disrupt the service."

The branches of the tree represent sub-goals or actions that an attacker could take to achieve the parent goal. These sub-goals can be combined using logical operators, typically AND and OR gates. An OR gate indicates that any one of the child nodes is sufficient to achieve the parent goal. An AND gate signifies that all child nodes must be achieved to reach the parent goal. For example, to "gain unauthorized access to the server," an attacker might need to either "exploit a software vulnerability" OR "guess the administrator's password." If the goal was "delete critical data," it might require "gain unauthorized access" AND "find and execute deletion script."

Attack trees help in systematically identifying potential threats and vulnerabilities. By breaking down complex attack scenarios into smaller, manageable components, security professionals can better understand the attack surface and prioritize defensive measures. They are useful for both offensive security testing, to plan penetration tests, and for defensive security, to build more robust systems and incident response plans. The construction of an attack tree involves defining the target, identifying potential attacker motivations and capabilities, and then recursively decomposing the attack into smaller steps until individual, actionable components are reached.