Threat Modelling

Threat Modeling for Digital Lending

🔹 Frameworks Used

• STRIDE (Microsoft) → Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, Elevation of Privilege.

• PASTA (Process for Attack Simulation and Threat Analysis) → 7-stage risk-centric threat modeling.

• MITRE ATT&CK → Map adversary techniques to banking ecosystem.

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We used STRIDE + PASTA combo at design phase, with MITRE ATT&CK for runtime detection coverage.

🔹 9.2 Threat Modeling Scope

1. Customer Onboarding (Amit R)

   • eKYC (Aadhaar, PAN, CKYC APIs)

   • Fenergo integration for KYC/CDD/EDD

   • Risk: API spoofing, man-in-the-middle attacks.

2. Loan Application & Credit Scoring

   • CIBIL/Experian API

   • Experian Hunter (fraud scoring)

   • Risk: Tampering of score payloads, DoS on scoring APIs.

3. AML/Financial Crime

   • Actimize ingestion (batch feed + SFTP + ETL → CTR/STR/NTR/CBWR reports).

   • Risk: Insider manipulation of reports, repudiation (no proof of file delivered).

4. Core Banking Integration (Finacle / TCS BaNCS)

   • Loan origination, disbursement.

   • Risk: Privilege escalation, unauthorized approval bypass.

5. GenAI Advisor

   • LLM-powered loan FAQs.

   • Risk: Prompt injection, data leakage, hallucination → misinformation to customer.

🔹 9.3 Threat Categories (STRIDE)

Category	Example in Lending	Mitigation
Spoofing	Fake user impersonates Amit R during onboarding	MFA, Aadhaar OTP + biometric, FIDO2
Tampering	Loan payload modified during transmission	End-to-end encryption (TLS 1.3 + mTLS).Also use hashing create checksum for the loan data, reciver will use same hashing and creat checsum.if 2 checksum match, then no tampering loan data.
Repudiation	Partner denies sending AML batch	Immutable logs + non-repudiation via digital signatures
Information Disclosure	PAN/Aadhaar exposed in logs	Data masking, tokenization, Azure Key Vault
Denial of Service	DoS on credit scoring API	API Gateway rate limiting, auto-scaling
Elevation of Privilege	Loan officer escalates to admin	RBAC, SailPoint SoD policies, PIM JIT access

Examples:

• Spoofing: Fake loan applications → Mitigation: Aadhaar OTP, PAN API validation, Fenergo KYC.

• Tampering: Loan data manipulation → Mitigation: Hashing, immutability with blockchain ledger (future roadmap).

• Repudiation: User denies transaction → Mitigation: Non-repudiation via digital signature (eSign, Aadhaar).

• Information Disclosure: PII leaks → Mitigation: Data masking, tokenization, field-level encryption.

• Denial of Service: Loan portal downtime → Mitigation: Azure Front Door + CDN + DDoS Protection.

• Elevation of Privilege: Unauthorized access → Mitigation: RBAC + PAM (Privileged Access Management).

Threat Modeling (STRIDE):

• Spoofing → Mitigated via MFA, Azure AD Conditional Access.

• Tampering → Digital signatures, hashing on loan docs.

• Repudiation → Immutable audit logs, blockchain ledger for high-value loans.

• Information Disclosure → Tokenization & field-level encryption.

• Denial of Service → WAF, DDoS protection, AKS autoscaling.

• Elevation of Privilege → RBAC + Just-in-Time access.

Partner & Integration Landscape

• Fenergo → KYC/CDD/EDD workflows, API integration.

• Actimize → AML/Fraud detection, CTR/STR/NTR/CBWR reports, FIU-IND integration.

• Experian / CIBIL → Credit Score API.

• Experian Hunter → Fraud Score API.

• TCS BaNCS / Finacle → Core Banking System.

• ABC Bank Batch Jobs → SFTP → Actimize ingestion → ETL pipeline → FIU-IND reporting.

🔹 Threat Modeling Process (PASTA)

1. Define Business Objectives → Secure loan origination, regulatory reporting, AML compliance.

2. Define Technical Scope → Lending microservices, Finacle/BaNCS, Fenergo, Actimize, APIs.

3. Application Decomposition → Process flows, trust boundaries (customer → API → microservices → CBS → partners).

4. Threat Analysis → Map STRIDE + MITRE ATT&CK.

5. Vulnerability & Weakness Analysis → OWASP Top 10, CVE scans in DevSecOps pipeline.

6. Attack Simulation → Ethical hacking scenarios: fake onboarding, fraud scoring tamper, AML report suppression.

7. Risk & Mitigation → Risk register, mapped to controls (Zero Trust, encryption, IAM).

🔹 Threat Modeling Deliverables

• DFDs (Data Flow Diagrams) → Customer to Loan Microservices to Core Banking → AML → Regulator.

• Threat Catalog → STRIDE categorized threats.

• Mitigation Matrix → Controls per hop.

• Integration with DevSecOps → Automated threat checks in pipelines (ZAP scans, dependency checks).

• Continuous Review → Updated threat model per sprint → SRB (Security Review Board).

🔹 Security KPIs from Threat Modeling

• 100% of high-risk data flows analyzed through STRIDE/PASTA.

• % of open threats mitigated before go-live (target: 95%).

• Threat model reviewed every quarter and during major feature releases.

• Zero critical unmitigated threats in production.