D04

Application Security Architecture

About The Standard Domain

The Application Security Architecture domain defines how applications, APIs, components, and services are designed and built to withstand threats and protect data, functionality, and user trust.

It provides unified expectations for secure design, interface protection, runtime controls, and resilience to support confidentiality, integrity, availability, and safe operation of software systems.

Secure Application Design

API & Interface Protection

Secure Components

Runtime & Session Control

Resilience & Assurance

Why Adoption is Necessary

Architectural Clarity

Provides a shared blueprint for secure application structure, components, interfaces, and interactions.

Consistent Engineering Expectations

Aligns teams on secure design principles for APIs, services, software components, data flows, and application boundaries.

Measurable Verification

Defines testable outcomes for security controls across code, APIs, runtime behavior, and application protection mechanisms.

Stronger Evidence

Supports traceability, audit readiness, and defensible evidence with clear design rationale, control coverage, and implementation proof.

How The Standard Works

Requirements

Define the security outcomes and capabilities applications must achieve to be secure by design.

Technical Specifications

Provide the architectural patterns, interfaces, controls, and design expectations needed to meet the requirements.

Verification and Validation

Define how to test, verify, and validate application security controls, behaviors, and protections.

Implementation Guidance

Offer practical guidance, patterns, and best practices to implement secure applications effectively.

Associate Standards Preview

Associate Standards Coming in Q3 2026

Detailed, implementation-level standards that support D01 will be published in Q3 2026 to help teams operationalize secure network architectures.

Built for Builders. Backed by Evidence.

D04 provides the architectural foundation for secure applications, APIs, components, and services, designed, engineered, and proven to protect software functionality, data flows, and user trust.