From AI-powered vendors protecting email inboxes and web browsers, to providers of modern code security, here’s a look at 20 key companies in web, email and application security.
While the emergence of new AI capabilities has been driving a surge in phishing and social engineering threats for several years now, the arrival of AI agents is expected to increase attacks exponentially. Unlike companies that must go through various processes to adopt agentic tools, attackers “don’t have to deal with corporate politics,” said Bryan Sacks, field CISO at New York-based Myriad360, No. 110 on CRN’s 2025 Solution Provider 500. “They’re just like, ‘All right, I have this tool now. I’m going to use it.’”
[Related: How Autonomous AI Cyberattacks Will Transform Security: Experts]
The possibility of a further intensification in AI-powered attacks means that organizations—and the solution and service providers who serve them—will be wise to double down on ensuring that they have the security fundamentals addressed, according to cyber defense experts. Modern email and web security is a must-have given the massive boost to phishing and social engineering attacks that AI has enabled.
At the same time, the rise of AI-powered coding tools has led to a spike in software vulnerabilities, meaning that advanced application security is more essential than ever. LLMs are also adept at finding flaws in code and developing exploits, meaning that proactively addressing vulnerabilities will be increasingly pivotal going forward.
For the 2026 Security 100 list, CRN is recognizing 20 web, email and application vendors that have stood out over the past year through delivering a combination of technical advancements and expanded opportunities for solution and service provider partners.
What follows are the 20 web, email and application companies that made the Security 100 list for 2026.
Abnormal AI
Evan Reiser
Co-Founder, CEO
Abnormal AI unveiled updates to its Security Posture Management offering to boost protection for Microsoft 365 usage. The expanded capabilities include broader visibility into misconfigurations in Microsoft 365 along with greater automation for prioritizing the highest-risk threat surfaces in the Microsoft 365 environment, according to the company.
Akamai Technologies
Tom Leighton
Co-Founder, CEO
Akamai Technologies debuted its Firewall for AI offering, providing “multilayered” defense against attacks and abuse targeting AI apps. The protections can block inputs by adversaries as well as unauthorized queries and data scraping on a large scale, Akamai said.
Apiiro
Idan Plotnik
Co-Founder, CEO
Application security vendor Apiiro debuted its Software Graph Visualization offering, which serves as an interactive map for visualizing an organization’s software architectures. The map can provide visualization of architectures spanning all components and vulnerabilities, the company said.
Barracuda Networks
Rohit Ghai
CEO
Major recent updates to Barracuda Networks’ unified security platform include the debut of Web Security Gateway 2.0, enabling advanced web security functionality to be built into SecureEdge site devices, according to the company. Other key enhancements have included email security capabilities for protecting against account takeover.
Cloudflare
Matthew Prince
Co-Founder, CEO
Key expansion moves by Cloudflare included the debut of the vendor’s security posture management offering, which provides unified visibility and risk remediation across SaaS apps, cloud infrastructure, email and web assets within a centralized dashboard. Cloudflare also recently added new capabilities such as AI security posture management (AI-SPM) for protecting AI usage and enforcing policies.
Contrast Security
Rick Fitz
CEO
Contrast Security unveiled moves to enable more effective runtime security through its application detection and response offering. The updates included an integration with GitHub Copilot, enabling the Contrast SmartFix tool to streamline the generation of code security fixes through utilizing insight such as data on runtime vulnerabilities and exploitability.
F5
François Locoh-Donou
CEO
F5 has bolstered its security offerings through a series of recent acquisitions including real-time network observability vendor MantisNet. F5 said that the addition of MantisNet technology will enable monitoring of east-west traffic across cloud-native and 5G environments as well as rapidly respond to network-level issues and security threats.
Ironscales
Eyal Benishti
Founder, CEO
Email security vendor Ironscales recently introduced new capabilities for detecting and remediating AI-based phishing attacks as well as additional functionality around user education and domain authentication. The company launched capabilities for automated DMARC setup, monitoring and enforcement, as well as enhanced spam filtering utilizing adaptive AI technologies.
Island
Michael Fey
Co-Founder, CEO
Island announced it is expanding beyond the enterprise through an MSP-focused version of its secure browser, developed in concert with an MSP partner. The MSP-friendly Island secure browser is aimed at helping to bring Island’s technology to partners and customers that don’t have the same resources of an enterprise but many of the same security needs, the company said.
Menlo Security
Amir Ben-Efraim
Co-Founder, CEO
In addition to continuing to expand its Zero Trust Access platform, Menlo Security has recently enhanced its Secure Enterprise Browser offering. Key updates included a dedicated dashboard for tracking application usage and activity, complete visibility of browser sessions and enhanced insight into violations of DLP (data loss prevention) policies.
Mimecast
Marc van Zadelhoff
CEO
Mimecast recently debuted new capabilities focused on thwarting AI-powered attacks including its new Mihra AI agent. The agent can enable investigations that provide up to a 7X improvement in response times to threats for Human Risk Command Center users, according to the company.
Orca Security
Gil Geron
Co-Founder, CEO
Orca Security unveiled enhancements to its capabilities in AI security posture management (AI-SPM) aimed at further boosting visibility into usage of LLMs, GenAI-powered applications and other AI technologies. The updates include improved capabilities for detecting the presence of sensitive data within AI training models as well as detections for data poisoning risks, the company said.
Proofpoint
Sumit Dhawan
CEO
Proofpoint debuted its Prime Threat Protection platform, unifying capabilities for threat defense such as multistage attack protection and defense against multichannel attacks. The platform utilizes the company’s Nexus AI technology as well as impersonation protection and “risk-based” guidance and education for employees, the company said.
Reflectiz
Idan Cohen
Co-Founder, CEO
Reflectiz offers a continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) platform for monitoring and protecting websites against threats from third parties. The tool works by detecting scripts and data flows across a site, rather than inside the browser as an extension would—ultimately bringing a nonintrusive approach to web security, according to solution providers.
Salt Security
Roey Eliyahu
Co-Founder, CEO
Major product expansion moves by Salt Security have included the debut of Salt Illuminate, which enables a dramatically improved process for adopting API security, according to the company. Key enhancements include self-service on-boarding as well cloud-native capabilities for “seamless” connections, the company said.
Snyk
Peter McKay
CEO
Snyk debuted its AI Trust Platform—an agentic platform built to secure and govern software development in the AI era—with capabilities that can reduce the security risks associated with AI-generated code. Meanwhile, Snyk also recently unveiled what it’s calling the industry’s “first” agentic security orchestration system with the launch of Evo.
Thales
Patrice Caine
Chairman, CEO
Thales unveiled its AI Security Fabric offering to protect agentic AI and GenAI-powered applications as well as identities and data, the company said. Key capabilities introduced by the company include protections against prompt injection, data leakage, model manipulation and other AI-focused threats.
Upwind
Amiram Shachar
Co-Founder, CEO
Cloud security startup Upwind, which has seen a major expansion in channel partnerships over the past year, offers a comprehensive runtime cloud security platform. The Upwind platform includes an eBPF-based sensor that provides visibility into workloads, configurations and applications in real time, according to the company.
Veracode
Brian Roche
CEO
Major recent updates from Veracode have included the debut of the company’s Package Firewall offering, a new tool for preventing threats targeting software supply chains. Key features include the ability to block malicious packages prior to entering development environments, as well as integrations into a number of package management systems and repositories.
Wiz
Assaf Rappaport
Co-Founder, CEO
Wiz, which has reached an agreement to be acquired by Google for $32 billion, has continued to expand its platform with updates including the launch of its Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server. The offering provides functionality for delivering rapid cloud visibility and improved intelligence for security investigations, according to the company.
