In accordance with an embodiment, described herein is a system and method for providing a universal security handler for use with a cloud-based integration platform. A universal security configuration interface can be provided to capture custom values, syntaxes, and/or grammars for a common set of security properties for different implementations of a particular authorization flow. The captured information can be used by a plurality of software components to create a custom security provider, which includes information needed for obtaining an access token from a specified cloud service provider. The security provider, which also includes methods for performing each step of the authorization flow, can be provided to a security processor configured to handle exchanges between the universal security configuration interface and the specified cloud service provider. The system enables the cloud-based integration platform to integrate with a plurality of third-party cloud services without writing additional code.