rss-bridge 2026-03-01T04:04:26.440173169+00:00

The 20 Coolest Web, Email and Application Security Companies Of 2026: The Security 100

From AI-powered vendors protecting email inboxes and web browsers, to providers of modern code security, here’s a look at 20 key companies in web, email and application security.

While the emergence of new AI capabilities has been driving a surge in phishing and social engineering threats for several years now, the arrival of AI agents is expected to increase attacks exponentially. Unlike companies that must go through various processes to adopt agentic tools, attackers “don’t have to deal with corporate politics,” said Bryan Sacks, field CISO at New York-based Myriad360, No. 110 on CRN’s 2025 Solution Provider 500. “They’re just like, ‘All right, I have this tool now. I’m going to use it.’”

The possibility of a further intensification in AI-powered attacks means that organizations—and the solution and service providers who serve them—will be wise to double down on ensuring that they have the security fundamentals addressed, according to cyber defense experts. Modern email and web security is a must-have given the massive boost to phishing and social engineering attacks that AI has enabled.

At the same time, the rise of AI-powered coding tools has led to a spike in software vulnerabilities, meaning that advanced application security is more essential than ever. LLMs are also adept at finding flaws in code and developing exploits, meaning that proactively addressing vulnerabilities will be increasingly pivotal going forward.

For the 2026 Security 100 list, CRN is recognizing 20 web, email and application vendors that have stood out over the past year through delivering a combination of technical advancements and expanded opportunities for solution and service provider partners.

What follows are the 20 web, email and application companies that made the Security 100 list for 2026.

Abnormal AI

Evan Reiser

Co-Founder, CEO

Abnormal AI unveiled updates to its Security Posture Management offering to boost protection for Microsoft 365 usage. The expanded capabilities include broader visibility into misconfigurations in Microsoft 365 along with greater automation for prioritizing the highest-risk threat surfaces in the Microsoft 365 environment, according to the company.

Akamai Technologies

Tom Leighton

Co-Founder, CEO

Akamai Technologies debuted its Firewall for AI offering, providing “multilayered” defense against attacks and abuse targeting AI apps. The protections can block inputs by adversaries as well as unauthorized queries and data scraping on a large scale, Akamai said.

Apiiro

Idan Plotnik

Co-Founder, CEO

Application security vendor Apiiro debuted its Software Graph Visualization offering, which serves as an interactive map for visualizing an organization’s software architectures. The map can provide visualization of architectures spanning all components and vulnerabilities, the company said.

Barracuda Networks

Rohit Ghai

CEO

Major recent updates to Barracuda Networks’ unified security platform include the debut of Web Security Gateway 2.0, enabling advanced web security functionality to be built into SecureEdge site devices, according to the company. Other key enhancements have included email security capabilities for protecting against account takeover.

Cloudflare

Matthew Prince

Co-Founder, CEO

Key expansion moves by Cloudflare included the debut of the vendor’s security posture management offering, which provides unified visibility and risk remediation across SaaS apps, cloud infrastructure, email and web assets within a centralized dashboard. Cloudflare also recently added new capabilities such as AI security posture management (AI-SPM) for protecting AI usage and enforcing policies.

Contrast Security

Rick Fitz

CEO

Contrast Security unveiled moves to enable more effective runtime security through its application detection and response offering. The updates included an integration with GitHub Copilot, enabling the Contrast SmartFix tool to streamline the generation of code security fixes through utilizing insight such as data on runtime vulnerabilities and exploitability.

François Locoh-Donou

CEO

F5 has bolstered its security offerings through a series of recent acquisitions including real-time network observability vendor MantisNet. F5 said that the addition of MantisNet technology will enable monitoring of east-west traffic across cloud-native and 5G environments as well as rapidly respond to network-level issues and security threats.

Ironscales

Eyal Benishti

Founder, CEO

Email security vendor Ironscales recently introduced new capabilities for detecting and remediating AI-based phishing attacks as well as additional functionality around user education and domain authentication. The company launched capabilities for automated DMARC setup, monitoring and enforcement, as well as enhanced spam filtering utilizing adaptive AI technologies.

Island

Michael Fey

Co-Founder, CEO

Island announced it is expanding beyond the enterprise through an MSP-focused version of its secure browser, developed in concert with an MSP partner. The MSP-friendly Island secure browser is aimed at helping to bring Island’s technology to partners and customers that don’t have the same resources of an enterprise but many of the same security needs, the company said.

Menlo Security

Amir Ben-Efraim

Co-Founder, CEO

In addition to continuing to expand its Zero Trust Access platform, Menlo Security has recently enhanced its Secure Enterprise Browser offering. Key updates included a dedicated dashboard for tracking application usage and activity, complete visibility of browser sessions and enhanced insight into violations of DLP (data loss prevention) policies.

Mimecast

Marc van Zadelhoff

CEO

Mimecast recently debuted new capabilities focused on thwarting AI-powered attacks including its new Mihra AI agent. The agent can enable investigations that provide up to a 7X improvement in response times to threats for Human Risk Command Center users, according to the company.

Orca Security

Gil Geron

Co-Founder, CEO

Orca Security unveiled enhancements to its capabilities in AI security posture management (AI-SPM) aimed at further boosting visibility into usage of LLMs, GenAI-powered applications and other AI technologies. The updates include improved capabilities for detecting the presence of sensitive data within AI training models as well as detections for data poisoning risks, the company said.

Proofpoint

Sumit Dhawan

CEO

Proofpoint debuted its Prime Threat Protection platform, unifying capabilities for threat defense such as multistage attack protection and defense against multichannel attacks. The platform utilizes the company’s Nexus AI technology as well as impersonation protection and “risk-based” guidance and education for employees, the company said.

Reflectiz

Idan Cohen

Co-Founder, CEO

Reflectiz offers a continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) platform for monitoring and protecting websites against threats from third parties. The tool works by detecting scripts and data flows across a site, rather than inside the browser as an extension would—ultimately bringing a nonintrusive approach to web security, according to solution providers.

Salt Security

Roey Eliyahu

Co-Founder, CEO

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