Tools / Microsoft Threat Modeling Tool (TMT) Interview questions
Why does removing a trust boundary line change threat count without deleting elements?
Boundary-crossing threat count depends on the crossing flag computed from the geometric relationship between data flows and trust boundaries at generation time - it isn't a property stored permanently on the elements or flows themselves.
Delete the boundary line, and on the next Generate run every flow that used to cross it is now evaluated as fully contained within a single (or no) trust zone, so the boundary-crossing-specific threats tied to that flag - weak authentication across trust levels, network sniffing on an untrusted segment, and similar - simply don't get instantiated anymore, even though every element and connector in the diagram is otherwise unchanged. It's a useful fact to know when a report's threat count drops unexpectedly after what looked like a purely cosmetic diagram edit.
More Related questions...