[2404.06386] Assessing the Understandability and Acceptance of Attack-Defense Trees for Modelling Security Requirements
Skip to main content
We gratefully acknowledge support from the Simons Foundation, member institutions, and all contributors. Donate
arXiv logo
Cornell University Logo

Computer Science > Software Engineering

arXiv:2404.06386 (cs)
[Submitted on 9 Apr 2024]

Title:Assessing the Understandability and Acceptance of Attack-Defense Trees for Modelling Security Requirements

Authors:Giovanna Broccia, Maurice H. ter Beek, Alberto Lluch Lafuente, Paola Spoletini, Alessio Ferrari
View PDF HTML (experimental)
Abstract:Context and Motivation Attack-Defense Trees (ADTs) are a graphical notation used to model and assess security requirements. ADTs are widely popular, as they can facilitate communication between different stakeholders involved in system security evaluation, and they are formal enough to be verified, e.g., with model checkers. Question/Problem While the quality of this notation has been primarily assessed quantitatively, its understandability has never been evaluated despite being mentioned as a key factor for its success. Principal idea/Results In this paper, we conduct an experiment with 25 human subjects to assess the understandability and user acceptance of the ADT notation. The study focuses on performance-based variables and perception-based variables, with the aim of evaluating the relationship between these measures and how they might impact the practical use of the notation. The results confirm a good level of understandability of ADTs. Participants consider them useful, and they show intention to use them. Contribution This is the first study empirically supporting the understandability of ADTs, thereby contributing to the theory of security requirements engineering.
Subjects: Software Engineering (cs.SE); Cryptography and Security (cs.CR)
ACM classes: D.2.1
Cite as: arXiv:2404.06386 [cs.SE]
  (or arXiv:2404.06386v1 [cs.SE] for this version)
  https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2404.06386

Submission history

From: Alessio Ferrari [view email]
[v1] Tue, 9 Apr 2024 15:28:31 UTC (956 KB)
Full-text links:

Access Paper:

license icon view license
Current browse context:
cs.SE
< prev   |   next >
new | recent | 2024-04
Change to browse by:
cs
cs.CR

References & Citations

export BibTeX citation

Bookmark

BibSonomy logo Reddit logo

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?)
Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?)
Litmaps (What is Litmaps?)
scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?)

Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article

alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?)
CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?)
DagsHub (What is DagsHub?)
Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?)
Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?)
Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?)
ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?)

Demos

Replicate (What is Replicate?)
Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?)
TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?)

Recommenders and Search Tools

Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?)
CORE Recommender (What is CORE?)

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.

Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)