Providing consistent cryptographic operations across several applications using secure structured data objects includes a security middleware component, using an application programming interface, receiving a data input from an originating application operating in application space. Both the application and the middleware component execute in the data processing system. A security schema object is retrieved by the security middleware component from an object store, the security schema object describing a sequence of cryptographic operations and includes several components describing aspects of the cryptographic operations. The data input is transformed from a first format to a second format where one of the formats is a secure structured data object formed using the sequence of cryptographic operations. A property of the secure structured data object contains data about the security schema object. The data input is transmitted in the second format to a consumer application operating in application space.