Information Assurance

9.3. Attack Graphs are Scenario Graphs

In the security community, Red Teams construct attack graphs to show how a system is vulnerable to attack. Each path in an attack graph shows a way in which an intruder can compromise the security of a system. These graphs are drawn by hand. A typical result of such intensive manual effort is a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall “white board” attack graph, such as the one produced by a Red Team at Sandia National Labs for DARPA’s CC20008 information battlespace preparation experiment (Figure 9.3). Each box in the graph designates a single intruder action. A path from one of the leftmost boxes in the graph to one of the rightmost boxes is a sequence of actions corresponding to an attack scenario. At the end of ...