Abuse cases describe intentional misuse
A use case describes what somebody should be able to do. An abuse case describes what somebody will try.
Writing them alongside requirements catches design decisions that no amount of careful coding fixes, because the flaw is that the feature works as specified. It is also a natural way to involve people who know the business rather than the technology, since they can usually think of several immediately.
More on Threat modelling
- Assets are what attackers want to affectThey came for one thing
- Attack trees decompose goals into possible pathsEvery way up the same hill
- Threat models expire as systems changeThe plan stopped growing
- Mitigations should connect to specific threatsEvery thread ends on a peg
- Threat models include failure without an attackerTwo ways the same mast falls
- Data-flow diagrams reveal hidden crossingsDraw the pipes, find the crossings