Threat Me Right: A Human HARMS Threat Model for Technical Systems

Abstract

Threat modelling is the process of identifying potential vulnerabilities in a system and prioritising them. Existing threat modelling tools focus primarily on technical systems and are not as well suited to interpersonal threats. In this paper, we discuss traditional threat modelling methods and their shortcomings, and propose a new threat modelling framework (HARMS) to identify non-technical and human factors harms. We also cover a case study of applying HARMS when it comes to IoT devices such as smart speakers with virtual assistants.