Abuse case is a specification model for security requirements used in the software development industry. The term Abuse Case is an adaptation of use case. The term was introduced by John McDermott and Chris Fox in 1999, while working at Computer Science Department of the James Madison University.

A complete abuse case defines an interaction between an actor and the system that results in harm to a resource associated with one of the actors, one of the stakeholders, or the system itself.

Abuse cases are most commonly used in the field of security requirements elicitation. Most of these types of abuse takes place in the victim’s home/place.