Diagram Components

THREATGET contains a collection of components (such as Elements, Connectors, Assets, and Boundaries) that the user can use to model his/her required scenarios. However, in some cases, the user needs to create new customized components to model a particular scenario. However, users can interact with their diagram components and create/update customized new ones through the ThreatGet web interface. Before delving into the ThreatGet components, the following diagram gives an overview of the difference between Elements, Connectors, Assets, and Boundaries.

The diagram shows that a Sensor and an ECU are defined as elements. Connectors allow these elements to be linked together. Assets refer to vital items that require additional security precautions. Assets in ThreatGet can be directly connected to element(s) or attached to connector(s) using Asset Connector. Boundaries are used to define a scope of a collection of elements and assets.

In the general context, a connector describes a connection between two elements. This connection can be considered physical as well as logical. For example, you want to check the connection between two elements, wireless or wired. Alternatively, you want to investigate what kind of data is exchanged between these elements. Boundaries can be seen as a container for one or more Elements. They can also collect physical or logical features. Elements, Assets, Connectors and Boundaries can be grouped into hierarchies as a set of groups of elements and sub-elements.

There is a superordinate category External Interactor and several subordinate elements like a Vehicle. The security characteristics are defined for the top category (i.e., External Interactor) inherits its properties to the derivatives below.

Each element has a namespace (e.g., AIT-Element) is defined next to the element's title as defined within parenthesis. You can only change or delete Elements you have created.

Note: Elements provided by the AIT cannot be updated or deleted. The Namespace is described in the Configuration/Namespace section.

Create New Element

To create a new Element, you first have to switch to the correct overview. Please click on Elements in the Navigation bar. RED marked in the picture below.

This opens the overview with the defined elements. You can already see all defined Elements, Assets, Connectors and Boundaries in their hierarchical structure on the left side.

In order to create a new component, click on the + in the upper right corner.

A dialogue opens in which you can define the name and select the type of the desired component. In this case, we define the name as "Top New Element" and select the Element as the component type. Then press OK to create the element.

The following window is then displayed to start to add more relevant details into your desired element.

Here you can now enter a Description for the created element. You are obliged to define an Icon and an Image for the element. Please click on the Change button and select the desired image to add the icon and image. Image size and resolution are automatically adjusted. Please Only use PNG images.

You can also change the Namespace. All elements you create have the default namespace (in the standard installation called "USER"). You can, however, select a different namespace.

In the lower part of this window, you can see a table where still entries are missing. The table displays all Tagged Values that have been assigned to this element. These Tagged Values describe the security properties of elements, assets, and connectors.

Press on the ADD Value button to add tagged values to the newly created element.

A dialogue opens in which you can review and add the Tagged Values you want.

You can see all the TaggedValues that can be added to your new element on the left side. If you click on one of these, the details are displayed on the right side. Here you can review the Tagged Value and change the Fixed setting. The Fixed setting says that the Default Value of the Tagged Value cannot be changed inside of the System Model. If you click on the toggle button, the Values table below changes. It adds a new column FIXED where you can adjust the fixed value for this Tagged Value for this specific element.

To add a Tagged Value, you have to activate the Checkbox next to the Tagged Value name. Say just add the Authentication and Authorization tagged values to your element. Then click on SAVE in the lower right corner.

You can see now that the selected Tagged Values Authentication and Authorization are added to the table below. The difference here is that we changed the value of Authentication and Authorization to the Fixed Value YES. So if somebody uses these elements in the system model, the Authentication and Authorization values are constantly set to YES and cannot be changed.

The column Inherited shows if a Tagged Value was inherited from a top element. This is not reasonable in this case because we created a new top element. However, we will see this if we create Sub-Elements of the newly created one (i.e., Top New Element). The user can use the WRENCH symbol to adjust the default or fixed value setting. In addition, a particular Tagged Value can be removed from this element by pressing on the X symbol.

On the right upper corner, you can see three buttons ("Circular Arrow", "Disk", and "X").

• Circular Arrow: undo any changes.

• Disk: save your newly defined tagged value; please click on the button with the disk in the top right corner.

• X: cancel the creation of the new element; you can click on the X with red background.

For now please save your new ELEMENT so we can create a Sub Element.

Create a Sub-Element

After creating our Top New Element, we will now create a Sub Element. To find our new created element faster inside all the defined elements, you can use the Search Field directly below the Navigation bar. Please enter the full name or subpart of the element name that needs to be found.

As you can see, there is a + below the newly created element. If you click on this button, you can create a Sub-Element.

The window is almost the same as for the previously created element. Only now you can see Icon, and Image have been selected but can be changed if necessary. If you look at the Tagged Values, you can see that the Authentication and Authorization tagged values are automatically inherited from the Parent Element. You can add additional tagged values as a new set of security properties for the new sub-element.

You can also add THREATGET Tags to your element. These tags are different from the Tagged Values. The purpose of the THREATGET Tags is to group Elements, Assets, Connectors and Boundaries.

To add a THREATGET Tag to an Element please click on the selectable Tags Input.

You can select as many predefined THREATGET Tags as you want. To learn how to create new THREATGET Tags please see the documentation for tag creation

After you added enough tags, you can deselect the selection, and the tags are added to the element. If you add THREATGET Tags to the Top-Element, these tags get added to all the sub-elements. In order to save this new Sub Element, select the Disk button on the top right corner.

Create a Connector

Creating a Connector is mostly the same as creating an Element and Sub-Element. To create a new Top Level Connector, click on the + button on the right upper corner. The dialogue opens in which you can define a name and select the desired type. In this case, please click on Connector and then on OK in the lower right corner.

As you can see, it is the same view as creating a new Element. The only difference is that you don't have to define an Image. This is because a Connector is not displayed with an image inside of the system model.

If you want to add new tagged values, you can follow the same steps we followed in creating a new element.

Create a Boundary

Creating a Boundary is mostly the same as creating an Element or a Connector. To create a new Top Level Boundary, click on the + button ob the right upper corner. The dialogue opens in which you can define a name and select the desired type. In this case, please click on Boundary and then on OK.

As you can see, the view is now reduced compared to creating an Element, Asset, or a Connector. The differences are that you do not have to define an Image or Tagged Values. This is because Boundaries are not displayed with an image inside of the system model and has no tagged values.

Create an Asset

Similarly as we followed steps for creating Element, Sub-Element, Connectors, and Boundary. We can also create an asset and defined its corresponding tagged values. Also, we can create sub-assets of the main top one.

Now we can move to the following tutorial for creating and managing tagged values.