Systems and methods for automatically generating security policy for a web service are described. In one aspect, one or more links between one or more endpoints are described with an abstract link description. The abstract link description describes, for each link of the one or more links, one or more security goals associated with exchange of message(s) between the one or more endpoints associated with the link. The one or more endpoints host respective principals networked in a distributed operating environment. Detailed security policies for enforcement during exchange of messages between the one or more endpoints are automatically generated from the abstract link description.