# Enhancing Cybersecurity Through Comprehensive Investigation of Data Flow-Based Attack Scenarios
## 3 Proposed Approach
### Methodology
#### 3.2.3 Impact Enumeration
## 6 Discussion

Vulnerabilities in a system can arise from unexpected and seemingly unlikely sources, but can also arise from more obvious origins that expose the system to the external environment and potential access points. Even a highly efficient function may have security vulnerabilities that were not anticipated or considered during the security development cycle [23]. The coherence of internal functionality can also be compromised by various means. Exploiting the data flow between different actors is one such way, as even a well-designed system can inadvertently reveal information about its operation. In particular, data in transit can be more susceptible to security issues than data at rest. This depends on factors such as transmission channels, data encapsulation methods, data protection techniques, and data communication protocols. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Aspect** & **Our Approach** & **STRIDE** & **MITRE ATT\&CK** & **PASTA** & **OCTAVE** & **TARA** & **FAIR** & **NIST CSF** \\ \hline Threat Identification & Comprehensive & Limited & Comprehensive & Comprehensive & Comprehensive & Comprehensive & Partial & Comprehensive \\ Data Flow & Yes & No & Partial & Yes & Partial & Partial & No & Partial \\ Interaction Attack & Detailed & Basic & Detailed & Detailed & Moderate & Detailed & No & Moderate \\ Mapping & & & & & & & & & \\ Impact & Yes & No & No & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes & Partial \\ Quantification & & & & & & & & & \\ IoT/Industrial & Yes & No & Partial & Adaptable & Adaptable & Yes & No & Adaptable \\ Threat Intelligence & Yes & No & Yes & Yes & Partial & Yes & No \\ Integration & & & & & & & \\ Risk-based Approach & Yes & No & No & Yes & Yes & Yes & Yes \\ Continuous Updates & Yes & No & Yes & No & Yes & No & Yes \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Comparative analysis of cybersecurity methodologies. The solution proposed in this paper focuses on assessing the impact of threats and the scope of attacks within a system design by comprehensively analyzing data flows. Our real-world case study demonstrates the benefits of threat modeling and attack impact analysis in enhancing system security. This methodology makes it possible to anticipate convincing attack scenarios and identify suitable defense strategies for future investigations. Our investigation delves deeply into the intricate distribution of attack scenarios in a real system. We analyze the severity, length, and complexity of each scenario using our systematic approach. This approach involves several steps: _Threat Analysis (STRIDE)_, _Attack Taxonomy_, _Attack Profile Generation_, _Attack Surface Detection_, and the _Attack Scenarios API_. We have created a comprehensive collection of attack scenarios, with each scenario characterized by its source and target components and the impact that it creates. Through a systematic analysis, we have quantitatively assessed the path complexity. We have also identified the prevalence and hierarchies of different attack scenarios that reflect the differences in their composition. Our investigation aims to identify the critical attack paths that pose a higher risk to the security of the system. A higher risk can be determined by the number of attack types in a path or the number of components involved in an attack scenario, which depends on the definition set by the system designer or security expert for a specific system in a particular company. This is achieved through a meticulous attack impact analysis process, wherein we examine various attack scenarios and layer different attack typologies. Following the attack impact analysis, the result of our framework is the generation of a quantitative metric calibrated to expert knowledge and contextual understanding that determines the severity of each scenario. This helps security experts to prioritize the most important attack possibilities and understand their implications.