This paper evaluates the performance of COPS over secure TLS and IPsec connections. For large size data, when we apply authentication and encryption, the throughput degrades compared with the throughput without authentication or encryption. COPS has native security mechanisms, but it also has limitations. As defined in RFC 2478, COPS includes no standard key management and no data privacy hop-by-hop security. To be deployed, it needs to support access control models. Based on our comparison of the performance of the implementation of COPS, COPS over TLS and COPS over IPsec, we propose a strategic approach to secure COPS.