Security service (telecommunication)

Security service is a service, provided by a layer of communicating open systems, which ensures adequate security of the systems or of data transfers  as defined by ITU-T X.800 Recommend

X.800 and ISO 7498-2 (Information processing systems – Open systems interconnection – Basic Reference Model – Part 2: Security architecture) are technically aligned. This model is widely recognized

A more general definition is in CNSS Instruction No. 4009 dated 26 April 2010 by Committee on National Security Systems of United States of America:

A capability that supports one, or more, of the security requirements (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability). Examples of security services are key management, access control, and authentication.

Another authoritative definition is in W3C Web service Glossary  adopted by NIST SP 800-95:

A processing or communication service that is provided by a system to give a specific kind of protection to resources, where said resources may reside with said system or reside with other systems, for example, an authentication service or a PKI-based document attribution and authentication service. A security service is a superset of AAA services. Security services typically implement portions of security policies and are implemented via security mechanisms.