2016 Security 100: 15 Coolest Identity Management And Data Protection Vendors

Coolest Identity Management And Data Protection Vendors

In recent months, companies have started to move away from perimeter technologies, as a continued stream of attacks have shown that they simply aren't enough. A major benefactor of that move have been the data protection and identity and access management markets. The market for IAM is expected to hit $18.3 billion by 2019, according to research firm MarketsandMarkets. On the inaugural Security 100 list, there are both legacy and emerging vendors looking to bring new innovations to the space, with channel-friendly solutions to lock down identities and secure data. Here are 15 that stood out as particularly cool.

Centrify

Tom Kemp, Co-Founder, CEO

Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.

Centrify is looking to secure the cloud and mobile environments, locking down enterprise identities with its identity management solution. The company expanded those offerings this year with the addition of federated privilege access to extend its security reach to IT outsourcing companies and application developers.

CipherCloud

Pravin Kothari, Founder, CEO

Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.

CipherCloud is looking to remove the security barrier of companies moving to the cloud, with a virtual appliance that can encrypt sensitive data before it reaches the cloud. CipherCloud provides encryption, tokenization and DLP for data in cloud-based services.

Cryptzone

Barry Field, CEO

Headquarters: Waltham, Mass.

Cryptzone is a growing network security startup that provides context-aware data protection and user access for both infrastructure and applications. The startup bet big on the channel this year, expanding its partner program and bringing in a former Dimension Data cloud vice president to lead it.

Dell

Michael Dell, Founder, Chairman, CEO

Headquarters: Round Rock, Texas

Perhaps best known for network security, Dell Security made significant investments in identity and access management in 2015, launching a new identity manager platform and privileged account management solution. Dell Security expanded overall as well, stealing away FireEye's global channel chief, potentially RSA with the proposed EMC deal, and a possible SecureWorks IPO.

Digital Guardian

Ken Levine, CEO

Headquarters: Waltham, Mass.

Digital Guardian has a fast-growing channel business (upward of 300 percent) and a rapidly expanding product portfolio in the DLP market. The company extended its endpoint DLP business to the network, cloud and mobile in October with the acquisition of Code Green Networks, creating an end-to-end DLP solution.

GlobalSign

Steve Waite, Managing Director, Americas GlobalSign

Headquarters (U.S.): Portsmouth, N.H.

As the number of Internet of Things devices explodes, GlobalSign is working to make sure those devices have a trusted, secure and manageable identity. The company offers identity and access management and public key infrastructure security solutions targeted at IoT.

IBM

Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President, CEO

Headquarters: Armonk, N.Y.

IBM has been investing heavily in security, naming the market as one of its "strategic imperatives" for 2015. IBM Security has an integrated security offering that includes identity and access management, but extends into cloud, mobile, endpoint, network and much more.

Imperva

Anthony Bettencourt, Chairman, President, CEO

Headquarters: Redwood Shores, Calif.

Imperva works on the premise that perimeter security is no longer enough, providing data and application security solutions that protect the cloud, websites, files, databases and big data repositories. The $234 million company had a major channel win in 2015, naming former Aruba Networks exec Karl Soderlund as its new worldwide channel chief.

NetIQ

Stephen Murdoch, CEO, Micro Focus International

Headquarters: Houston

Hybrid cloud is causing major headaches for companies looking to maintain security control. NetIQ, owned by Micro Focus, looks to solve that problem with what it calls the Identity-Powered Enterprise, offering a range of identity and access management, security management, IT management, disaster recovery, workplace migration and unified communications solutions.

Okta

Todd McKinnon, Co-Founder, CEO

Headquarters: San Francisco

Okta had a red-hot 2015, landing $75 million in funding and joining the prestigious unicorn startup club. The company's identity management platform has garnered high industry praise and it has formed partnerships with a who's who of the tech world and expanding further into MDM and two-factor authentication.

RSA, The Security Division Of EMC

Amit Yoran, President

Headquarters: Hopkinton, Mass.

While it does offer solutions in incident response, endpoint monitoring, network monitoring and SIEM, RSA is perhaps best known for its identity and authentication solutions. This year will be an interesting one for the security vendor, with the pending acquisition of parent company EMC by Dell on the horizon.

SailPoint

Mark McClain, Co-Founder, CEO

Headquarters: Austin, Texas

If you want to manage risk, you have to manage data. That's the philosophy SailPoint operates on, offering on-premise and cloud-based solutions for identity access management. The company also offers solutions for compliance, provisioning, access management, and identity analytics.

SecureAuth

Craig Lund, Co-Founder, CEO

Headquarters: Irvine, Calif.

The SecureAuth IdP platform includes solutions for behavioral biometrics, two-factor authentication, adaptive authentication, single-sign on and more. The company's identity solutions work on the premise that any company can be breached, and therefore should have confidence that SecureAuth’s identity solutions could stop an attack in its tracks.

SMS Passcode

Claus Rosendal, Co-Founder, CTO; Jakob Ostergaard, Co-Founder, CIO

Headquarters: Denmark

SMS Passcode specializes in multifactor authentication, offering a solution that protects VPN/SSL clients, cloud applications, websites and Windows logon. The solution authenticates users using their mobile devices, as well as by location and behavior patterns. SMS Passcode was acquired by U.K.-based CensorNet in February and will be integrated into the cloud security company's portfolio.

Vera

Ajay Arora, Co-Founder, CEO

Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.

2016 has already been a big year for Vera, which has already landed $17 million in venture capital funding and was named as a finalist in the prestigious RSA Innovation Sandbox event. Vera offers a data security solution that secures and manages data as it travels within and outside of an organization.