Hyökkäysten taksonomia

John D. Howard esittää väitöskirjasssaan : An Analysis of Security Incidents on the Internet 1989-1995 määritelmän tietoturvalle: "Computer security is preventing attackers from achieving objectives through unauthorized access or unauthorized use of computers and networks."

Sen pohjalta hän tiivistää (luvussa 6) alla olevaan taulukkoon taksonomian, jossa tietokoneeseen tai verkkoon hyökkäävä voidaan luokitella ensimmäisen sarakkeen mukaisesti ja tavoite (motivaatio), johon hän tähtää, on jokin viimeisessä sarakkeessa mainituista. Tavoitteeseen päästään jonkin tietoon liittyvän tuloksen kautta. Tulos muodostuu siitä, että jollain välineellä pääsee käsiksi tietoon. Pääsy on jaoteltu neljään vaiheeseen. Ideana on siis, että erilaisia hyökkäyksiä voidaan mallintaa valitsemalla kustakin sarakkeesta yksi (tai usea) vaihtoehto.

Attackers Tools ----------------- Access ----------------- Results Objectives

Hackers User Command Implementation Vulnerability Unauthorized Access Files Corruption of Information Challenge, Status

Spies ==> Script or Program ==> Design Vulnerability => Unauthorized Use => Processes => Data in Transit ==> Disclosure of Information ==> Political Gain

Terrorists Autonomous Agent Configuration Vulnerability Theft of Service Financial Gain

Corporate Raiders Toolkit Denial-of-service Damage

Professional Criminals Distributed Tool

Vandals Data Tap

Muita taksonomioita

Landwehr C.E., Bull A.R., McDermott J.P., Choi W.S.: A taxonomy of computer program security flaws. ACM Computing Surveys, Vol.26, No. 3 (Sept. 1994), pp. 211-254.
Tiivistelmä : An organized record of actual flaws can be useful to computer system designers, programmers, analysts, administrators, and users. This survey provides a taxonomy for computer program security flaws, with an Appendix that documents 50 actual security flaws. These flaws have all been described previously in the open literature, but in widely separated places. For those new to the field of computer security, they provide a good introduction to the characteristics of security flaws and how they can arise. Because these flaws were not randomly selected from a valid statistical sample of such flaws, we make no strong claims concerning the likely distribution of actual security flaws within the taxonomy. However, this method of organizing security flaw data can help those who have custody of more representative samples to organize them and to focus their efforts to remove and, eventually, to prevent the introduction of security flaws.

Taimur Aslamin MS-thesis vuodelta 1995: A Taxonomy of Security Faults in the Unix Operating System (ks. erityisesti sivu 39). Lyhyempi versio samasta aiheesta (vuodelta 1996, 10 sivua).