Threat modeling the quick and dirty way

Basic choreography

Step 1. Set up a table

Threat	Likelihood	Impact	Protection
Walking into a tree	medium	Pain for a few days, but can still function, usually	****

The first column contains a short description of the threat, the second the likelihood of it occurring, the third what impact it would have if it did happen, and the fourth an assessment (grade) of the time and energy you would need to protect yourself from the threat (for instance you can have no stars denote that there is no protection from that threat, hence it will cost nothing.

Step 2. Fill in the table

I recommend doing a brainstorm on threats as initial filling of the table, before thinking about the other columns.

Step 3. Reorder the list according to your set of priorities

Choose your ordering strategy carefully. Several strategies are possible.

• If this is a learning experience or you are a fan of "only time for putting out fires" cultures, no need for any ordering.
• In a low risk environment (no immediate death threats) an "on demand" strategy works well. In this strategy you can use "low hanging fruit" and set up protection for items with a big impact and/or high likelihood of occurrence first.
• In a high risk environment or if any of the items in the list of impacts reads" possible loss of life" or some life-altering experience or you have turned procrastination into an art, best choose an "anticipating strategy", meaning do more research and detailed scenario planning to find possible threats and solutions overlooked.

Examples

Protesting in the united states

Threat	Likelihood	Impact	Protection