New directions in attack tree research: catching up with industrial needs

Abstract

Attack trees provide a systematic way of characterizing diverse system threats. Their strengths arise from the combination of an intuitive representation of possible attacks and availability of formal mathematical frameworks for analyzing them in a qualitative or a quantitative manner. Indeed, the mathematical frameworks have become a large focus of attack tree research. However, practical applications of attack trees in industry largely remain a tedious and error-prone exercise. Recent research directions in attack trees, such as attack tree generation, attempt to close this gap and to improve the attack tree state-of-the-practice. In this position paper we outline the recurrent challenges in manual tree design within industry, and we overview the recent research results in attack trees that help the practitioners. For the challenges that have not yet been addressed by the community, we propose new promising research directions.