Threat Mitigation Mapping

Connect threats to controls for effective security planning.

When to Use This Skill

• Prioritizing security investments
• Creating remediation roadmaps
• Validating control coverage
• Designing defense-in-depth
• Security architecture review
• Risk treatment planning

Core Concepts

1. Control Categories

Preventive ────► Stop attacks before they occur
   │              (Firewall, Input validation)
   │
Detective ─────► Identify attacks in progress
   │              (IDS, Log monitoring)
   │
Corrective ────► Respond and recover from attacks
                  (Incident response, Backup restore)

2. Control Layers

| Layer | Examples | | --------------- | ------------------------------------ | | Network | Firewall, WAF, DDoS protection | | Application | Input validation, authentication | | Data | Encryption, access controls | | Endpoint | EDR, patch management | | Process | Security training, incident response |

3. Defense in Depth

                    ┌──────────────────────┐
                    │      Perimeter       │ ← Firewall, WAF
                    │   ┌──────────────┐   │
                    │   │   Network    │   │ ← Segmentation, IDS
                    │   │  ┌────────┐  │   │
                    │   │  │  Host  │  │   │ ← EDR, Hardening
                    │   │  │ ┌────┐ │  │   │
                    │   │  │ │App │ │  │   │ ← Auth, Validation
                    │   │  │ │Data│ │  │   │ ← Encryption
                    │   │  │ └────┘ │  │   │
                    │   │  └────────┘  │   │
                    │   └──────────────┘   │
                    └──────────────────────┘

Templates and detailed worked examples

Full template library and detailed mitigation/control mappings live in references/details.md. Read that file when you need the concrete templates for: Mitigation Model, Defense in Depth scoring, Executive Summary scaffolding, Critical Gaps reporting, Recommendations, Implementation Roadmap, Results by Control.

Best Practices

Do's

• Map all threats - No threat should be unmapped
• Layer controls - Defense in depth is essential
• Mix control types - Preventive, detective, corrective
• Track effectiveness - Measure and improve
• Review regularly - Controls degrade over time

Don'ts

• Don't rely on single controls - Single points of failure
• Don't ignore cost - ROI matters
• Don't skip testing - Untested controls may fail
• Don't set and forget - Continuous improvement
• Don't ignore people/process - Technology alone isn't enough