Threat Modeling Frameworks: When and How to Use Them

The threat of data breaches makes headlines every day. But what if you could anticipate how an attacker might hack your systems before they can do damage?

That’s the promise of threat modeling frameworks. They offer a structured, consistent way to think like an attacker and spot potential vulnerabilities before they’re exploited. Start identifying and addressing risks early in the development lifecycle when fixes are easier, cheaper, and more effective.

What Is Threat Modeling?

Threat modeling is a structured process that identifies potential threats before they become real issues. It’s the foundation of a strong cybersecurity threat model that actively works to prevent attacks, rather than just respond to them. The goal of this modeling process is to think like an attacker, pinpoint weaknesses, and put the right controls in place.

Threat modeling in cybersecurity usually begins by mapping out the target environment and identifying how it processes, stores, and transmits data. This target could be a specific application, an entire network infrastructure, or even a physical location. From there, security teams evaluate possible risks and prioritize those that need addressing.

Whether protecting sensitive data, meeting compliance goals, or working through an application security risk assessment, threat modeling helps you analyze threats with purpose and build proactive defenses into every release.

When Should You Use Threat Modeling Frameworks

Organizations face real and evolving risks when managing infrastructure, maintaining legacy systems, or running customer-facing platforms. A clear threat modeling methodology untangles these complex environments and identifies the weak spots attackers are most likely to target.

While threat modeling is a natural fit early in the secure software development lifecycle (SDLC), it also applies well beyond development. Aligning threat models with the SDLC makes security a part of how you plan, build, and ship software. Plus, consistent threat model analysis gives teams across security, operations, and compliance a structured way to evaluate exposures and make smarter decisions. With growing pressure on application security, the ability to identify and prioritize threats no matter where they originate sharpens risk posture across the board.

OWASP Top 10

The OWASP Top 10 is one of the most recognized resources in application security, and for good reason. It highlights the most common and high-impact vulnerabilities in web applications—including injection flaws, broken access control, and security misconfigurations. This gives teams a solid starting point for identifying risk in both new and existing systems.

Using the OWASP Top 10 in the software threat modeling process helps security teams identify common attack vectors and plan appropriate mitigation steps during design and review. It also supports broader threat modeling efforts like code reviews, architectural assessments, and vulnerability management lifecycles. And while web-focused, many issues it highlights—like insecure design or lack of visibility—appear across different environments.

Threat Modeling Frameworks

No single method works for all threat modeling. Choosing the right framework depends on goals, system complexity, and the amount of time and expertise a team can dedicate. Some frameworks focus on identifying categories of threats, and others rank risks or link security concerns to business objectives.

Many organizations also reference the MITRE Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge (ATT&CK) framework or the Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC) database during threat modeling to ground their analysis in real-world attacker behavior. While these aren’t threat modeling frameworks, they provide valuable intelligence that validates threats and prioritizes the right countermeasures.

Here are some of the most widely used threat modeling frameworks and how to know which one fits your needs:

NIST Threat Modeling Guide (800-154)

NIST Special Publication 800-154 outlines a data-centric approach to threat modeling. Instead of focusing only on infrastructure or software, this guide evaluates how sensitive data flows through a system, where it’s stored, and how it might be exposed or misused. The four-step process includes identifying system components and data, selecting likely attack vectors, assessing existing security controls, and analyzing remaining risks.

While it doesn’t replace other frameworks, it works well alongside them, especially for teams using the NIST cybersecurity framework or following NIST’s guide to secure CI/CD pipelines. It’s a strong choice to build risk awareness into early planning or reinforce the overall threat modeling framework with a methodical review of data exposure.

Four Question Framework

This framework keeps things simple without sacrificing structure. It’s centered around four key questions:

What are we working on?
What can go wrong?
What are we doing about it?
Did we do a good job?

These questions help security teams surface risks quickly and collaboratively, especially early in a project or when formal processes aren’t yet in place. It’s often used by organizations that want a lightweight, repeatable model that still gets meaningful results without requiring deep technical expertise.

PASTA

The Process for Attack Simulation and Threat Analysis (PASTA) takes a business-aligned view of threat modeling. It has seven phases: from defining business objectives and scoping the system to identifying threats, analyzing vulnerabilities, simulating attacks, and assessing risk impact.

PASTA stands out because it connects technical findings to real business risk. It’s ideal for teams with more mature security programs that need to integrate threat modeling into compliance or enterprise risk management workflows and mitigate high-impact business threats.

DREAD

DREAD, which stands for Damage, Reproducibility, Exploitability, Affected Users, and Discoverability, is a scoring system that prioritizes threats based on risk. Each threat is rated across these five categories and then averaged to assign a relative risk level. It’s particularly useful when you already have a list of threats and must figure out which ones deserve attention first.

Because scoring is subjective, teams need clear criteria to stay consistent, but DREAD adds helpful structure to threat model analysis and prioritization. Some teams also compare DREAD scoring with The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) ratings to evaluate how internal risk maps to industry-standard severity metrics. These scores also help determine the most appropriate countermeasures based on risk severity and impact.

STRIDE

STRIDE threat modeling is one of the oldest and most widely used frameworks. Originally developed by Microsoft, it categorizes threats into six types:

Spoofing
Tampering
Repudiation
Information Disclosure
Denial of Service
Elevation of Privilege

Security teams can apply these categories to system components, data flow diagrams (DFDs), or interactions to identify where potential issues might emerge.

STRIDE works especially well during a system's early design phases, making it a go-to for teams doing software threat modeling during application architecture planning or secure design reviews. It also guides the selection of targeted countermeasures to block specific threat categories.

What to Look for in a Threat Modeling Tool

Threat modeling tools use the frameworks above—or their own—to analyze risk and spot threats for you. The best options make it easier to uncover real risks, track them clearly, and collaborate across teams.

Here are five key features to prioritize:

Threat intelligence integration: Look for tools that pull from real-world data sources, such as MITRE CAPEC or vendor-maintained threat databases. This gives models depth by grounding them in active, real-world threats instead of relying on guesswork. It also complements activities like penetration testing by offering visibility into threats teams may not catch otherwise.
Visual dashboards and system mapping: A strong visual interface shows how different parts of a system connect—and where vulnerabilities might surface. Dashboards should drill down into specific components, view potential attack paths, and monitor threat status over time.
Collaboration across teams: Threat modeling works best when everyone’s involved. Tools that support shared workspaces, version tracking, and role-based access make it easier for engineering, security, and business teams to work together without slowing each other down.
Built-in policy and compliance controls: Whether aiming to meet internal standards or external frameworks, a customizable policies and compliance alignment tool streamlines governance. This reduces manual tracking and helps ensure consistency across models.
Automatic reporting and documentation: Reporting should be fast, clear, and tied directly to modeling work. Look for tools that generate up-to-date documentation on mitigation strategies and changes. This supports audits, security reviews, and ongoing risk management without extra overhead.

Enhance Your Threat Modeling Frameworks With Legit Security

Threat modeling helps you think like an attacker before they reach your systems. Whether using STRIDE to identify threat categories, DREAD to prioritize risk, or PASTA to connect technical issues to business outcomes, these threat modeling frameworks give you a structured way to reduce exposure. But even the best methodology benefits from automation and visibility across your software pipeline.

Legit Security strengthens your threat modeling efforts by continuously monitoring your development environment, flagging risks in real time, and aligning teams around what matters most. It brings together application security insights and risk context so you can shift from reactive cleanup to proactive defense.

If you're ready to improve how your team identifies, tracks, and eliminates threats, request a demo and see how Legit Security can support your security goals from code to cloud.