Most good security work is invisible by design. Today is the exception.
The 2026 Cybersecurity Stars Awards winners are announced across 95 subcategories in four main award categories.
The reason is simple. Cybersecurity is full of work that deserves recognition and rarely gets it. Products that quietly close real gaps. Teams that stop incidents nobody reads about. Companies that raise the baseline for everyone else. The Cybersecurity Stars Awards put names on that work, once a year, through independent judging.
Every nomination was reviewed by an independent panel of judges and scored against three criteria: innovation, impact, and technical excellence. Entries were not ranked by popularity, brand size, or campaign reach. They were judged on the work itself.
Some subcategories have more than one winner. The awards recognize every entry that meets the standard, not just one per category.
By design, the winners span four main categories and 97 subcategories, including agentic AI security, AI SecOps, AI security testing, post-quantum cryptography, continuous threat exposure management, extended detection and response, software supply chain security, identity threat detection and response, secure access service edge, and zero trust security, among many others.
With 95 subcategories, the full list is the story. The complete 2026 winners list is live now at awards.thehackernews.com/winners/2026/.
Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to every company, team, and practitioner who entered. Nominations for the 2027 awards open later this year. Join this waiting list to be the first to know when they do.
Security work is usually noticed only when something breaks. This is one day for the work that made sure it didn’t.
