Analyze security threats and vulnerabilities
Identifies vulnerabilities and threats and builds a prioritized remediation plan.
The prompt
Role: Act as a security engineer assessing security risk for a system or a set of findings.
Context: Scope (component, service, or finding list from a scan/pen test): [SCOPE]. Architecture, trust boundaries and data sensitivity: [ARCHITECTURE_DATA]. Existing controls: [CONTROLS]. Threat model context (who might attack, from where): [THREAT_CONTEXT]. Constraints on remediation (change windows, compatibility, resourcing): [CONSTRAINTS]. Framework / rating scale to use: [FRAMEWORK].
Goal: Give the team a clear, prioritised view of the real security risk and a remediation plan sequenced by risk reduction per unit of effort.
Task: Produce: (1) the threats / vulnerabilities identified, each with the affected asset, the attack path, exploitability, impact (confidentiality/integrity/availability and blast radius), and an overall rating on the given scale; (2) which are realistically exploitable given the existing controls and threat context vs theoretical; (3) a remediation plan - fix, mitigation, or accepted risk per item, with owner, effort, and the residual risk; (4) quick wins that reduce risk immediately; (5) detection/monitoring to add.
Constraints: Rate risk on the provided scale and justify each rating. Do not include exploit code or step-by-step attack instructions - describe the class of weakness and the fix. Distinguish confirmed issues from suspected. Respect the change constraints in sequencing.
Examples: Finding row: 'Asset: [service] API. Weakness: missing authz check on [endpoint]. Path: authenticated low-priv user calls it directly. Exploitability: high. Impact: read other tenants' data (confidentiality, cross-tenant). Rating: Critical. Fix: enforce tenant scoping in [layer]; owner [team]; effort M; residual: low.'
Format: Sections: Findings (table, ranked) | Realistic vs theoretical | Remediation plan (table) | Quick wins | Detection to add. ~700 words.
Verification: State the assumptions behind each exploitability rating and flag findings that need validation (e.g. confirm the control is actually absent) before remediation is scheduled.
Validation: Pressure-test the top finding as an attacker with only the stated access: does the attack path actually work end to end? If a control blocks it, re-rate and re-sequence.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Software Development prompts
What to fill in
- SCOPE
- ARCHITECTURE_DATA
- CONTROLS
- THREAT_CONTEXT
- CONSTRAINTS
- FRAMEWORK
- service
- endpoint
- layer
- team
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RCTFVV structure (Role, Context, Task, Format, Verification, Validation). RCTFVV extends RCTF with two checking steps. Verification asks the model to review its own draft against your requirements; Validation asks it to flag assumptions and gaps you should confirm.
Related prompts
- Get a beginner-friendly code review of my first projectA ranked set of the five improvements that matter most, explained simply, plus what you did well and what to learn next.
- Create a test plan and test casesA risk-based test strategy with test cases for functional, integration, and end-to-end testing.
- Audit a codebase for bugs, risks, and tech debtA systematic review of a repository with prioritized findings and a remediation plan.
- Analyze logs to find what went wrongReads logs to identify errors, patterns, and the likely root cause.