What are the best practices for evaluating secure by design claims?

What “secure by design” should mean in practice

secure by design is not a label you accept at face value. It is a claim about how security was built into architecture, defaults, development, testing, release, and operations. Evaluate the claim by asking whether the product or team can show evidence of secure defaults, vulnerability handling, disclosure process, and ongoing security accountability, not just a marketing statement.

A credible claim should be anchored in artefacts a practitioner can inspect: design documentation, threat modelling, security requirements, release gates, vulnerability response records, and disclosure or bounty activity. If the security posture exists only in presentation decks or sales language, the claim is weak even if the product looks mature on the surface.

One useful test is whether the security controls are observable in the shipped product and operating model. That means checking whether insecure options are disabled by default, whether risky functionality requires deliberate enablement, and whether the vendor can explain how security decisions are made when features, dependencies, or configurations change.

How to evaluate the evidence behind the claim

Start with the evidence that is hardest to fake. Public vulnerability disclosure practices, published advisories, patch cadence, third-party assurance, and clear documentation of secure configuration usually tell you more than a generic claim of “built for security.” A team that can describe how it discovers, triages, fixes, and communicates vulnerabilities is usually far more believable than one that only asserts secure development.

Look for alignment between the claim and the operational reality. If the vendor claims secure-by-design, but there is no visible process for handling bugs, no clear hardening guidance, and no proof that security is part of the release lifecycle, treat the claim as incomplete. The best evidence is a chain of practice, not a single certificate or badge.

Recognised standards can help as supporting evidence when they are specific and current. For product security, the EU Cyber Resilience Act and CISA Secure by Design are useful anchors because they connect the claim to concrete expectations around secure defaults, vulnerability handling, and lifecycle responsibility.

When the product exposes APIs, integrations, or automation, evaluate whether security has been applied at the interface layer too. A claim is stronger when the team can explain authentication, authorization, configuration, and failure handling rather than only internal coding practices. For broader control expectations, NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 Security and Privacy Controls provides a defensible control vocabulary, while OWASP API Security Top 10 is useful where exposed services are part of the product surface.

What a buyer or internal reviewer should conclude

Use the claim as a starting point, not a verdict. A secure-by-design assertion should change your diligence, not replace it. If the evidence is strong, you can reduce uncertainty and focus on residual risk, integration risk, and operational fit. If the evidence is thin, assume the claim is aspirational until proven otherwise.

For internal teams, the same rule applies to your own deliverables. Secure by design is not just about implementation quality, it is also about whether security decisions survive handoff into deployment and support. A design that is secure in the lab but brittle in production is not a strong secure-by-design story.

Practitioner takeaway: Treat secure by design as a testable operating claim. The more the vendor can show about defaults, disclosure, remediation, and repeatable security controls, the more confidence you can place in the assertion.

Related resources from NHI Mgmt Group

• How should security teams make NHI best practices usable across the business?
• How should security teams evaluate a software provider’s commitment to secure by design practices?
• What are the signs that a vendor’s secure by design claims are not holding up in production?
• What are the best practices for RBAC policy design?