Efficient and Generic Algorithms for Quantitative Attack Tree Analysis

• Published in: IEEE transactions on dependable and secure computing Vol. 20; no. 5; pp. 1 - 18
• Main Authors: Lopuhaa-Zwakenberg, Milan, Budde, Carlos E., Stoelinga, Marielle
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington IEEE 01.09.2023; IEEE Computer Society
• Subjects: Algorithms; Attack trees; BDD algorithms; computational complexity; Costs; Cybersecurity; Europe; formal methods; Genetic algorithms; Graph theory; Heuristic algorithms; Logic gates; Measurement; Security; security metrics; Semantics
• ISSN: 1545-5971; 1941-0018
• DOI: 10.1109/TDSC.2022.3215752

Numerous analysis methods for quantitative attack tree analysis have been proposed. These algorithms compute relevant security metrics, i.e. performance indicators that quantify how good the security of a system is; typical metrics being the most likely attack, the cheapest, or the most damaging one. However, existing methods are only geared towards specific metrics or do not work on general attack trees. This paper classifies attack trees in two dimensions: proper trees vs. directed acyclic graphs (i.e. with shared subtrees); and static vs. dynamic gates. For three out of these four classes, we propose novel algorithms that work over a generic attribute domain, encompassing a large number of concrete security metrics defined on the attack tree semantics; dynamic attack trees with directed acyclic graph structure are left as an open problem. We also analyse the computational complexity of our methods.