The rise of the Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems has introduced new challenges. The growing number of connected devices increases network complexity, leading to higher latency and traffic. To address these issues, distributed system architectures have gained prominence. This shift, however, has significantly expanded the attack surface, requiring additional security measures to protect all components – from sensors and actuators to edge nodes and central servers. Recent incidents highlight the difficulty of this task: Cyberattacks, like distributed denial-of-service attacks, continue to pose severe threats, causing substantial damage. Despite advancements in distributed computing, implementing a holistic defense mechanism remains an open challenge, particularly against attacks that demand both enhanced resilience and rapid response. Addressing this gap requires innovative solutions to enhance the security of distributed software systems. In this work, we present our holistic self-adaptive security framework that combines different adaptation strategies and the concept of security levels to create not only comprehensive but also efficient defense mechanisms. We describe how to incorporate the framework into a real-world use case scenario and further evaluate its applicability and efficiency. Our evaluation yields promising results indicating great potential to further extend the research on the self-adaptive security framework.