Diagram Components

THREATGET contains a collection of components (such as Elements, Assets, Connectors, Interfaces, and Boundaries) that the user can use to model their required scenarios. However, in some cases, the user needs to create new customized components to model a particular scenario. With the ThreatGet web interface, users can create and update their own diagram components, as well as interact with them. Before delving into the ThreatGet components, the following diagram gives an overview of the difference between Elements, Connectors, Assets, Interfaces 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, Interfaces 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 defined namespace (e.g., AIT-Element), which can be found next to the element's title 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 a new Element

To create a new Element, you first have to switch to the correct overview. Please click on Toolbox in the Navigation bar, as shown with RED marks in the picture below.

This opens the overview with the defined elements. You can already see all defined Elements, Assets, Connectors, Interfaces 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 please now enter a Description for the created element. You can define an Icon and an Image for the element, if the default ones are not appropriate. If so, 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 or JPG 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 entries are still 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 Tagged Values 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 specifies if the Default Value of the Tagged Value can 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 of your element.

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

You can now see 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 PEN 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: to undo any changes.

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

• X: to cancel the creation of the new element or delete an element, 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 newly created element faster inside all the defined elements, 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.

If you click on the arrow of the element, where you want to create a sub element, a + indicating that if you click on this button, you can create a new Sub-Element, appears.

The window is almost the same as for the previously created element. Only now you can see the field for the Top Type, which describes the parent element name. 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. The image and icon are as well inherited from the parent, but are adjustable if needed.

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

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

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

After you added enough tags, you can click out of the selection field, and the tags are added to the element. If you add 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 cannot define an image, only an icon. 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.

Create an Interface

As the previous steps have already shown, to create an Interface, we need to click on the + button on the top right. This time we select a name and the Interface button.

The view looks similar to the Connector one. It works as the other types of components there are.

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