Nominations are open • Enter by February 27, 2027 • Time left: Start a nomination
Award categoryCybersecurity Product / Service
The Cybersecurity Excellence Awards recognize data security products. The category covers products that protect sensitive data and fit no narrower data category; specialist data products can also enter.
Nominations are open
Enter this category by February 27, 2027. Anyone can submit an entry: the company, the nominee, a colleague or an agency.
The Data Security category covers products that keep sensitive information safe wherever it is stored, used or shared. Typical entries protect documents as they travel, control who can open a file after it leaves the organization (digital rights management), and erase data so it cannot be recovered. Others protect files, documents and messages rather than databases (unstructured data security), monitor database activity or hide real values in copies of data (masking). Four retired areas enter here: digital document security (also Encryption and Key Management), rights management for business documents (media and software start in Anti-Piracy), secure erasure (also Data Privacy Management) and unstructured data security (also Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)).
This is the broad data category. Platforms that combine several data security functions start in Data Security Platform. A specialist product starts in its own category, such as Data Security Posture Management (DSPM), Data Loss Prevention (DLP), Data Governance, Encryption and Key Management, Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), Secure File Transfer, Secure Storage and Archiving, Secure Collaboration Platform or Visual Data Security. Data used by AI has its own category, AI Data Security and Governance. Any of them may also enter here. Backup and recovery products start in Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery (BCDR) or Ransomware Recovery and may enter here as well. The company behind the product can be recognized in Best Data Security Company.
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.
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:
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.
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.