CDSA is primarily a middleware framework that provides a set of APIs for creating and delivering secure applications. It allows application developers to easily add a set of different security features and services that have been prewritten and designed for client/server-based applications. CDSA provides the following features:

• Cryptography and encryption
• Certificate creation and management
• Policy management
• Authentication and non-repudiation
• Public key infrastructure

It was initially designed by Intel Architecture Labs for Linux but now also supports the Windows platform.