About the Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) category
What belongs in this category
The Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) category covers identity built for the people an organization serves rather than its own staff: consumers, citizens, patients and business partners. Typical entries handle sign-up and sign-in at large scale, sign-in with social media accounts or without passwords, management of privacy choices and preferences, and protection against account takeover and fake accounts, while keeping sign-in easy enough that customers finish it.
Identity for an organization's own workforce fits Identity and Access Management (IAM). Checking documents to confirm a customer's identity at onboarding fits Identity Verification (IDV), and stopping fraud more widely fits Fraud Prevention. A CIAM product built for banks or retailers can also enter Digital Banking Security, Financial Services or Retail.
Related categories to enter
Each category is judged separately, so you can enter a product in every category that matches what it does, with a separate nomination for each. Tailor each nomination to that category's focus. Entering several related categories gives the product 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 organizations of similar size and region, so a mid-sized firm is not ranked against a global enterprise. Your entry package, any sponsorship and public votes do not affect the jury's scores.
Strong entries in this category show:
- Leadership — scale and trust: customer accounts managed, sign-ins handled at peak, regulated or high-profile customers such as banks, retailers or governments.
- Innovation — a customer identity problem solved in a new way, such as stronger security without losing customers at sign-up, stopping fake accounts at scale, or giving customers control over their data.
- Impact — results for client organizations: account takeovers and fake accounts stopped, sign-up completion rates, sign-in success rates, support calls reduced. Give before-and-after figures.
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
A vendor can enter its own product or service, and a PR agency can enter it on a client's behalf. The nomination form has a confidential field for detail that is shared with the judges and not published, such as customer names, deployment figures or roadmap. Deadlines, pricing and entry steps are on the How it Works page.
