A practical threat model across cryptographic, identity, delegation, network, and availability domains. Each vector maps to a mitigation strategy implementers can apply and verifiers can enforce.
Center is higher severity. Click a category in the legend to jump to its vectors and mitigations.
The threats you should expect to face, and the mitigations that keep verification meaningful under adversarial conditions.
severity · CRITICAL
vectors · 3
Vector
Private key extraction
Mitigation
Prefer hardware-backed storage where available, and keep key material out of logs and diagnostics.
Vector
Memory scraping
Mitigation
Minimize key lifetime in memory; use constant-time comparisons and wipe buffers when practical.
Vector
Side-channel leakage
Mitigation
Use mature implementations and avoid secret-dependent branching in verification paths.
severity · HIGH
vectors · 3
Vector
DID impersonation
Mitigation
Bind identifiers to public keys so impersonation requires the corresponding private key.
Vector
Lineage forgery
Mitigation
Require signed proofs and deterministic canonicalization so a verifier can reject forged chains offline.
Vector
Document tampering
Mitigation
Canonicalize before signing so any modification invalidates verification.
severity · HIGH
vectors · 3
Vector
Privilege escalation
Mitigation
Design delegation so child authority cannot exceed the parent (least privilege, monotonic narrowing).
Vector
Stale delegations
Mitigation
Prefer time-bounded grants and explicit rotation/revocation paths for long-lived authority.
Vector
Orphaned authority
Mitigation
Define revocation behavior for descendant identities and document the expected verifier behavior.
severity · MEDIUM
vectors · 3
Vector
MITM on transport
Mitigation
Use authenticated encryption and verifier-side signature checks; never trust the network for authenticity.
Vector
Resolution poisoning
Mitigation
Treat resolution outputs as untrusted until signature and schema validation succeed.
Vector
Replay attacks
Mitigation
Use nonces and short-lived challenges for interactive flows; for offline flows, bind proofs to explicit contexts.
severity · LOW
vectors · 3
Vector
Resolution outage
Mitigation
Ensure critical verification can proceed offline from cached or locally held documents when possible.
Vector
Abusive traffic
Mitigation
Rate limit, isolate hotspots, and design systems so verification degrades gracefully under load.
Vector
Dependency failure
Mitigation
Minimize hard dependencies in verification-critical paths and document fallback behavior.
Please report vulnerabilities privately so fixes can ship before public discussion.