TechFinitive Awards 2026 – Cybersecurity Excellence

The Cybersecurity Excellence category at the TechFinitive Awards 2026 recognises organisations tackling the security challenges facing businesses as threats evolve and AI changes the balance between attackers and defenders. This year’s five finalists address different parts of that challenge, from reducing vulnerability exposure and strengthening security awareness to modernising authentication and bringing security operations together. Their approaches reflect a common priority: effective cyber defence must keep pace with emerging threats without introducing unnecessary complexity.

Without further ado, the nominees for Cybersecurity Excellence in 2026 are:

• KnowBe4
• Adaptiva
• Sophos
• Yubico
• RSA

Adaptiva is focused on automating patch management to help organisations address vulnerabilities faster, while KnowBe4 combines security education with AI-driven defences against social engineering. RSA is advancing passwordless authentication, giving organisations more flexibility in how they verify identities, and Sophos is pursuing a more coordinated approach to security operations through its AI-native Sophos Fusion offering. Yubico, meanwhile, continues to champion hardware-backed authentication designed to resist phishing and account takeovers. Together, the finalists demonstrate the range of approaches needed to protect modern organisations, from closing technical vulnerabilities to securing the people and identities at the heart of enterprise IT. You can read more about what our judges had to say about each submission here (scroll below).

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Here’s what our judges had to say about the nominees

Adaptiva

There has been a lot of talk about the AI-driven vulncopalypse, with the number of vulnerabilities, and therefore the number of patches required to remedy them,, going through the roof during 2026. This has meant that patch management is now more essential than ever. And that’s where Adaptive enters the equation: “Adaptiva’s OneSite Patch transforms patch management from a manual, resource-intensive process into autonomous remediation, helping organisations reduce vulnerability exposure and strengthen cybersecurity resilience at enterprise scale.” Working across operating system patches for Windows and Linux, third-party application patches across Windows, Linux, and macOS, and Windows driver and BIOS updates, Adaptiva prioritises fixing real-world risk, quickly moving from detection to mitigation.

KnowBe4

In this age of AI-driven security threats, it can sometimes seem that threat awareness is now a lost cause. That is not, and should not be seen as, the case. In fact, threat awareness is more vital than ever, as AI delivers increasingly convincing social engineering bait. KnowBe4 is not a start-up; it’s been protecting organisations through education and awareness for 16 years. Nor is it sitting on its laurels: KnowBe4 has 50 patents related to AI innovation in security awareness, and 12 production-ready AI defence agents. “By uniting human defence, email and collaboration security, and autonomous AI agent governance into a single, cohesive platform, KnowBe4 sets the benchmark for cybersecurity excellence.”

RSA

AI touches most everything in cybersecurity, for attackers, defenders and users alike. From phishing attacks to malware attacks, AI has helped push authentication to the top of the ‘demands your attention’ tree. Passwords have become way too easy to both phish and bypass, which is why passwordless authentication is no longer an aspirational security objective but rather a must have for organisations that truly take security seriously. The RSA multi-modal passwordless approach, through its Unified Identity Platform and RSA ID Plus, supports FIDO2 mobile passkeys, FIDO security keys, desktop logon for Windows and macOS, biometrics, and hardware tokens. “This flexibility allows organizations to select appropriate authentication for different users, risk profiles and environments while managing methods centrally.”

Sophos

Sophos has been in the cybersecurity game as long as I have, and few vendors can say that. But longevity doesn’t automatically equate to excellence. Once again, it is the impact of AI that has pushed Sophos onto the shortlist; or rather how it is redefining what effective cybersecurity should look like in the AI era. And that doesn’t mean more complexity, but the opposite: Sophos has gone for a simpler, smarter and more adaptive approach to cyber defence. The introduction of Sophos Fusion, an AI-native cybersecurity defence, transforms security operations function into a coordinated system rather than a collection of disconnected tools. “Built on a single, open architecture, Sophos Fusion brings together security controls, data, AI and human expertise into one coordinated defence.”

Yubico

It would be impossible to talk about identity, authentication and cybersecurity excellence without mentioning Yubico. While passkeys are more convenient, if you want the ultimate in authentication security then a hardware Yubico key is hard to beat. This is because a YubiKey keeps cryptographic material completely isolated from the host device and operating system, meaning that credentials simply cannot be stolen, copied, or intercepted remotely. I have been a YubiKey user for 17 years now, since the very beginning, and for good reason: it delivers “an unshakeable, hardware-backed root of trust that blocks account takeovers and provides true phishing resistance, all while keeping access fast and frictionless for legitimate users.” And that is not only the gold standard, it’s a very strong case for cybersecurity excellence.