Personas and Archetypes
It's possible to start from a simple list of attacker archetypes, such as those shown in the previous section. When doing so, it's easy to find yourself arguing about the resources or capabilities of such an archetype, and needing to flesh them out. For example, what if your terrorist is state-sponsored, and has access to government labs? These questions make the attacker-centric approach start to resemble “personas,” which are often used to help think about human interface issues. You can use lessons from that community to inform your approach.
Although he didn't invent the word, usability pioneer Alan Cooper developed the concept of personas in his 1998 book, “The Inmates are Running the Asylum” (SAMS, 1999). In more recent work, “About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design” (Wiley, 2012), Cooper and his colleagues integrate personas into a more in-depth process, and stress that personas are based...
