Threat Modeling the Cloud: An Ontology Based Approach

In this paper, we have explored the relation among different actors involved in the Cloud ecosystem to develop an ontology. This ontology is further mapped to a design structure matrix for evaluating threats from varied actors’ perspectives. Our DSM-based threat analysis can be utilized to identify the most critical/influential as well as least critical/influential actor in the Cloud. However, our DSM-based approach is flexible and thus, it can be used to reveal other critical information such as classifying vulnerabilities that achieve a common goal. We believe that by systematically identifying the Cloud vulnerabilities, the CI based on using the Cloud can consequentially be better protected.