Taxonomy for Comparing Attack-Graph Approaches,” netsq.com

Automated attack-graph tools show how individual vulnerabilities in a system can be composed to create meta-vulnerabilities or how individual sensor alerts can be joined to describe a multi-stage scenario attacks. In recent years many organizations have developed attack-graph type systems, but because these organizations often do not clearly define their terms, consistently use terms such as “attack-graph”, explain their assumptions, or identify their limitations, comparing the various efforts is difficult at best. This paper describes our efforts to establish a taxonomic foundation for comparing and contrasting attack-graph approaches, and we use the taxonomy to compare several important efforts in the field.