Data flow
The movement of information among actors, processes, stores, and external systems. Modeling it helps identify where security assumptions change.
- Also called
- data flow diagram
- Defined in
- OWASP Threat Modeling Cheat Sheet
Covered in
Review tenant boundaries before implementation
Trace tenant identity through requests, data stores, caches, jobs, and administration, then turn plausible isolation failures into tests.
Review a code change through its trust boundaries
Turn a pull request into a small set of security claims that can be checked against the surrounding system and tests.
Choose a threat modeling method and turn its findings into tests
Use the four-question frame to scope a design, pick STRIDE, attack trees, LINDDUN or PASTA by the question you need answered, and leave behind threat records and abuse-case tests the team can run.
Threat pattern library for threat modeling
Thirty-two recurring threat patterns grouped by identity, authorization, parsers, concurrency, integrations, data exposure, supply chain, availability and AI agents, each with where it shows up on a data-flow diagram, mitigations, a verification step and STRIDE, CWE and CAPEC links, plus a YAML catalog and a script that lists patterns per diagram element.
Data minimization and retention: collect less and prove that deletion works
Design collection and deletion around a data-flow graph that includes logs, derived tables, exports and restored backups, and use per-person keys so deletion can reach copies you cannot edit.
Worked threat model: a mobile banking app
A complete worked threat model for a mobile banking-style app: the data-flow diagram and its elements, STRIDE threats on the client, the transport and the backend, and the mitigations mapped to OWASP MASVS v2 controls and current Android and iOS platform APIs.
All 7 pages that cover Data flow in the library
Practice: Local project: Secure a real HTTP API