2026 Cybersecurity Stars Awards: 95 Categories Honor Top Security Innovators
The 2026 Cybersecurity Stars Awards have officially announced winners across 95 subcategories spanning four main award pillars, spotlighting the often-unseen work that keeps organizations secure. Organized by The Hacker News, the independently judged program evaluated every nomination against three criteria: innovation, impact, and technical excellence—with no consideration for brand size, marketing reach, or campaign popularity.
This year's winners span a broad range of security disciplines, reflecting where the industry is heading in 2026. Recognized subcategories include agentic AI security, AI SecOps, AI security testing, post-quantum cryptography, continuous threat exposure management (CTEM), extended detection and response (XDR), software supply chain security, identity threat detection and response (ITDR), secure access service edge (SASE), and zero trust security. Several subcategories recognized multiple winners, underscoring the program's intent to honor all entries that meet its quality threshold rather than crown a single champion per field.
The proliferation of AI-related categories—from agentic AI security to AI-powered security testing—signals how deeply artificial intelligence has woven into both offensive and defensive operations. Meanwhile, the inclusion of post-quantum cryptography reflects the industry's preparation for quantum-era threats, and categories like CTEM and ITDR point to the shift toward continuous, identity-centric defense models. Organizations evaluating their own security posture can use the SSL/TLS checker to verify their encryption readiness, run a port scanner to identify exposed attack surfaces, or check credential exposure with the email breach checker to understand the identity-layer risks these award-winning solutions are designed to mitigate.
The full list of 2026 winners is now live at awards.thehackernews.com/winners/2026/. Nominations for the 2027 cycle will open later this year, with a waiting list available for practitioners who want early notification. As the organizers noted, security work is usually noticed only when something breaks—this is one day dedicated to the work that ensured it didn't.