This document establishes the general concepts and principles of information technology (IT) security evaluation. It specifies the general model of evaluation given in this document, which in its entirety is intended to be used as the basis for evaluation of security properties of IT products.

This document provides an overview of all parts of the ISO/IEC 15408 series. It describes the various parts of the ISO/IEC 15408 series i.e.

• defines the terms and abbreviations used in all parts of the series; establishes the core concept of a Target of Evaluation (TOE);
• describes the evaluation context; and
• describes the audience to which the evaluation criteria is addressed.

Additionally, this document introduces the basic security concepts necessary for the evaluation of IT products.