In my, rather mundane world of corporate security, the threat model must answer (at the very least) the following questions:
1) What is the upper bound of the loss of protected asset? 2) Who is the attacker and what are his capabilities? 3) What is the estimated cost of mounting a successful attack? 4) What is the expected profit from a successful attack? 5) What legal constraints are imposed on the protection methodology? 6) What is the upper bound of the cost of the design, deployment and operation of the system? I would refuse to design a system unless a reasonably clear answers to those questions is provided. In case of the "SSL system fix/replacement", I would suggest the good starting point is to address (1) first by the following statement: The system must protect browser/server communications expected in the course of normal retail operations with each single transaction of no more than $10k. The system is not expected to protect individual liberty, life or limb, nor is it expected to protect high-value monetary transactions, intellectual property assets, state secrets or critical civic infrastructure operations. Mark R. _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
