Threat Modeling Large File Transfers in Newsrooms: Securing the Backbone of Media Operations

Аннотация

News organizations have grown increasingly reliant on large file transfer systems for time-sensitive OPEN ACCESS media operations, regularly managing multi-gigabyte SUBMITED 27 July 2025 video content through enterprise platforms like ACCEPTED 07 August 2025 PUBLISHED 21 August 2025 MediaShuttle, Aspera, and Microsoft FTP Server while VOLUME Vol.07 Issue 08 2025 working against tight editorial deadlines. This digital shift in journalism workflows appears to have left media CITATION infrastructures vulnerable to sophisticated cyber- Ashish Bhatti. (2025). Threat Modeling Large File Transfers in Newsrooms: Securing the Backbone of Media Operations. The American Journal of attacks. Threat actors seem particularly drawn to Applied Sciences, 7(8), 117–132. exploiting file transfer weaknesses as a pathway to https://doi.org/10.37547/tajas/Volume07Issue08-09 sensitive content and newsroom disruption, which COPYRIGHT became starkly evident during the 2023 MOVEit breach © 2025 Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the creative commons attributes 4.0 License. that impacted the BBC. Yet current threat modeling frameworks, built primarily for general enterprise settings, may not adequately capture the distinct operational pressures and security needs that define newsroom file transfer environments. This study is the first to apply the STRIDE threat modeling framework to journalism file transfer systems. The new framework combines STRIDE with Zero Trust principles to address security risks in editorial workflows. Through validation across case studies involving three varied news organizations, the framework demonstrated what appears to be a 40% enhancement in threat identification capabilities and uncovered 23 previously overlooked vulnerabilities. This research offers systematic methods for securing file transfer operations without compromising editorial workflow efficiency. It provides theoretical groundwork for journalism cybersecurity research while delivering practical implementation guidance that media organizations can actually use. The American Journal of Applied Sciences 117 https://www.theamericanjournals.com/index.php/tajas Keywords: Threat modeling, Cybersecurity, Journalism, suited to the high-pressure, content-sensitive File transfer security, Media operations, Newsroom operations typical of journalism. Methods like STRIDE, security, STRIDE, Zero Trust, Managed File Transfer, although widely used, often overlook domain-specific Cyber Threat Intelligence. realities such as rapid publishing timelines, the ethical obligation to shield sources, and the editorial imperative