id: "SA-08(01)" title: "Clear Abstractions" family: "SA" family_name: "System and Services Acquisition" sort_id: "sa-08.01" priority: "P1" implementation_level: "system" parent: "SA-08" enhancement: True
Statement
Implement the security design principle of clear abstractions.
Guidance
The principle of clear abstractions states that a system has simple, well-defined interfaces and functions that provide a consistent and intuitive view of the data and how the data is managed. The clarity, simplicity, necessity, and sufficiency of the system interfaces— combined with a precise definition of their functional behavior—promotes ease of analysis, inspection, and testing as well as the correct and secure use of the system. The clarity of an abstraction is subjective. Examples that reflect the application of this principle include avoidance of redundant, unused interfaces; information hiding; and avoidance of semantic overloading of interfaces or their parameters. Information hiding (i.e., representation-independent programming), is a design discipline used to ensure that the internal representation of information in one system component is not visible to another system component invoking or calling the first component, such that the published abstraction is not influenced by how the data may be managed internally.
Assessment Objective
the security design principle of clear abstractions is implemented.
System and services acquisition policy
procedures addressing the security design principle of clear abstractions used in the specification, design, development, implementation, and modification of the system
system design documentation
security and privacy requirements and specifications for the system
system security and privacy architecture
system security plan
other relevant documents or records
Organizational personnel with the responsibility for determining system security and privacy requirements
organizational personnel with system specification, design, development, implementation, and modification responsibilities
system developers
organizational personnel with information security responsibilities
Organizational processes for applying the security design principle of clear abstractions to system specification, design, development, implementation, and modification
mechanisms supporting the application of the security design principle of clear abstractions to system specification, design, development, implementation, and modification