About the Financial Services Cybersecurity Professional of the Year category
Who this award is for
This award is for a security professional who works in financial services: banking, insurance, payments, capital markets and fintech. Recent winners include an identity and access management specialist at a global bank and a solution architect who built the programs that govern who can access systems at a large bank.
Financial institutions face particular pressures: payments move in real time, criminals target customer accounts and regulators supervise closely. The same person can be entered in a role category as well, for example Cybersecurity Professional of the Year, Cybersecurity Risk Management Professional of the Year or Application Security Leader of the Year.
Related categories to enter
Each category is judged separately, so you can enter a nominee in every category that fits their work, with a separate nomination for each. Tailor each nomination to that category's focus. Entering several related categories gives the work more than one chance to be recognized.
How entries are judged
An independent jury of security practitioners, analysts and CISOs scores each nomination on leadership, innovation and impact. Each nomination competes in its category against peers in a similar setting and region. Your entry package, any sponsorship and public votes do not affect the jury's scores.
Strong entries in this category show:
- Leadership — the institution and what is at stake: the customers, accounts or transaction volumes protected, and how the nominee works with fraud, risk, audit and business teams.
- Innovation — a new answer to a financial-sector problem, such as stronger customer login without extra steps, real-time fraud detection, or controls for AI and open banking.
- Impact — measured outcomes: fraud losses avoided, unauthorized access reduced, regulatory examinations passed, payment and trading systems kept running. Amounts and percentages that cannot be published can go in the confidential field.
The jury awards Gold, Silver or Bronze, or a Finalist badge, and results are published on this site and announced to the 600,000+ member Cybersecurity Insiders community. Every approved nomination also enters the separate Community Choice award, decided by public votes.
How to enter
Anyone can submit a nomination: the nominee, a colleague or manager, the organization, or an agency entering a client. The nomination form has a confidential field for detail that is shared with the judges and not published, such as internal figures, customer names or incident details. Deadlines, pricing and entry steps are on the How it Works page.
