# Secure Architecture & Process Design

> Design or assess critical systems, workflows, integrations, and operating controls before implementation or a major change.

Canonical page: https://www.guvenkaya.co/services/secure-architecture-process-design

**Make the security decisions before they become expensive to reverse.** Work through the architecture, custody model, approvals, and recovery paths with a senior engineer, before they are built into the system.

## What we design or assess

We define authority, trust boundaries, recovery paths, and implementation requirements with your engineers.

- **Where authority sits**: We map who can move value, who can approve it, and where those two must never be the same person.
- **What moves, and who can move it**: We trace keys, funds, and messages across the system, marking every point where trust changes hands.
- **What happens when it goes wrong**: We design the exception, break-glass, and recovery paths before an incident forces your team to invent them.
- **What the build team can act on**: We turn each decision into a constraint an engineer can implement and a reviewer can check.

## Best used before you build.

- **Architecture is changeable**: Core system and trust decisions have not yet hardened.
- **Automation is increasing**: A high-impact workflow is moving from manual to automated.
- **A vendor is being selected**: Custody, signing, platform, or integration choices need independent challenge.
- **A launch is approaching**: A migration or launch needs design review before build completion.

## How we turn your design into requirements.

1. **Map the architecture and trust boundaries**: Agree the system’s purpose, constraints, and open design questions. Document actors, assets, authority, data flows, and dependencies in a shared model.
2. **Compare controls against threats**: Examine credible failure scenarios and compare ways to prevent, detect, and recover from them. Identify who would operate each control.
3. **Record decisions and requirements**: Document the selected controls, the threats they address, and why they were chosen. Turn those decisions into requirements for the implementation team.
4. **Define readiness actions**: Order the implementation work, assign owners, and define the checks that must pass before go-live.

## Deliverables

- **Architecture and trust model**: A shared view of boundaries, authority, and dependencies.
- **Decision log**: The threats we considered, the requirements that followed, and why each control was chosen.
- **Readiness actions**: What to build first, who owns it, and what has to be true before go-live.

## Engagement team

- **Timur Güvenkaya**, Founder & Partner: Rust-based and non-EVM systems, protocol security, architecture, infrastructure, and custody.
- **Paul Vijender**, Specialist Advisor: Product security, IAM, cloud, network, data, DevSecOps, blockchain, and AI leadership.
- **Piotr Cielas**, Principal Advisor: Financial-services assessments, offensive security, risk leadership, CVEs, and patents.

## Frequently asked questions

### How is this different from a security review?

Design work defines security requirements before implementation. A review checks the implemented system. The two can be scoped together.

### What if the architecture is already built?

An existing system may need a review or risk assessment. Design work applies when you are planning a migration, a new custody model, or a change to an operational workflow.

### Do you need access to our code?

Not necessarily. This work runs on architecture, data flows, threat scenarios, and conversations with the people who will build it. If the engagement includes reviewing existing code, we need access to that code during scoping.

### Who needs to be in the room?

The people who can change the design. That means the engineers who will build it, whoever owns the operational workflow, and someone who can make the call when there is a tradeoff. On our side a principal runs the engagement, with the specialists the system calls for.

### Can you work from an existing design or threat model?

Yes. Share the current design, known risks, and decisions still open. We check the assumptions and focus on the changes or unresolved questions that need security input.

## Related services

- [Signing & Custody Security Reviews](https://www.guvenkaya.co/services/signing-custody-security-review.md): Review key generation, signing approvals, key use, and recovery across MPC, HSM, multisig, and custody platforms.
- [Risk Assessment](https://www.guvenkaya.co/services/risk-assessment.md): Give leadership a prioritized view of where security risk concentrates and what to address first.
- [Digital Asset Program Advisory](https://www.guvenkaya.co/services/digital-asset-program-advisory.md): Make security, custody, vendor, and operating-model decisions across a broader digital asset program.

## Challenge the design while it can still change.

Describe the proposed system, open design questions, and deadline. We will define the design scope.

Discuss your scope: https://www.guvenkaya.co/contact