The 20 Coolest Identity Access Management And Data Protection Companies Of 2024: The Security 100

From vendors offering identity and data security to providers of security service edge, here’s a look at 20 key companies in identity, access and data security.

In 2024, attackers are showing no signs of losing interest in their go-to tactics of the past few years. Those include heavily favoring identity-based attacks along with targeting of workers in environments outside the corporate firewall, such as work from home.

Meanwhile, data security has taken on expanded importance amid continued attacks focused on data theft and extortion, even as the possibility of data exposure through GenAI tools only further underscores the risks.

As part of CRN’s Security 100 2024, we’ve assembled the following list by collecting many of the top vendors in the related — but not identical — segments of identity protection, data security and security service edge (SSE). In some cases, vendors on our list offer more than one of these technologies (or offer all three, as is the case with Microsoft).

In addition to Microsoft, key identity security vendors on our list include two of Gartner’s “leaders” quadrant picks — Okta and Ping Identity — for the research firm’s 2023 Magic Quadrant for Access Management.

As for SSE — an integrated set of technologies focused on enabling secure remote access to applications and other resources — vendors on our list include Zscaler and Netskope, which were ranked in Gartner’s “leaders” quadrant for 2023. (We’ve chosen to include the third “leader” on Gartner’s 2023 Magic Quadrant for SSE, Palo Alto Networks, and several other SSE vendors with roots in the network space in our forthcoming Network Security category for this year’s Security 100.)

What follows are the 20 identity, access and data security companies that made our Security 100 for 2024.

Acronis

Ezequiel Steiner

CEO

Recent moves by Acronis included the debut of Acronis CyberApp Standard, an integration technology that opens the company’s ecosystem to third-party vendors. Acronis also launched its Advanced Automation offering, which aims to enable MSP partners to adopt subscription-based services.

BeyondTrust

Janine Seebeck

CEO

BeyondTrust debuted its Workforce Passwords capability as part of its BeyondTrust Password Safe platform to provide secure storage and management for passwords used with business apps. Workforce Passwords enables business app password management at the same level as security typically only used with privileged accounts.

BigID

Dimitri Sirota

Co-Founder, CEO

Recent updates to BigID’s data security and privacy platform have included the introduction of “intelligent” remediation using recommendations based on context. The capability enables accelerated data security risk reduction as well as minimized disruption, according to the company.

Code42

Joe Payne

President, CEO

Code42 enhanced its portfolio over the past year with the addition of custom indicators of insider risk for its data protection platform, Incydr. Code42 also improved Incydr with capabilities for accurate detection of source code exfiltration, providing complete visibility of the movement of source code, according to the company.

Cohesity

Sanjay Poonen

President, CEO

Key updates to Cohesity DataProtect included an integration with Microsoft 365 Backup Storage. Meanwhile, its GenAI-powered Cohesity Turing offering was integrated with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI, Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service and Amazon Bedrock. Cohesity also recently said it plans to acquire Veritas’ data protection business.

CyberArk

Matt Cohen

CEO

Key launches from CyberArk included the CyberArk Secure Browser, which it called the “first identity security-based enterprise browser.” The web browser enables enhanced security for workforces through cookieless browsing, password replacement, and simplified configuration of

security and productivity controls.

Dell Security

Michael Dell

Chairman, CEO

Dell Security, a unit of Dell Technologies, has brought a major focus on enabling zero trust security through its portfolio of offerings. Recent launches have included a new private cloud offering, which brings together numerous technologies and capabilities in a bid to replicate Department of Defense-approved zero trust architecture.

Microsoft

Satya Nadella

Chairman, CEO

Microsoft extended its identity management and security offerings through its Entra portfolio, most prominently with Entra ID, formerly Azure Active Directory. It also expanded into the security service edge market with identity-centric offerings for secure web gateway (Entra Internet Access) and zero trust network access (Entra Private Access).

Netskope

Sanjay Beri

CEO

Netskope’s Next Gen SASE Branch offering brings together its “borderless” SD-WAN with its zero trust security offerings and AI and ML capabilities. The platform leverages Netskope’s SkopeAI technology that offers deep contextual awareness for improved data loss prevention across structured and unstructured data.

Okta

Todd McKinnon

Co-Founder, CEO

As Okta has expanded beyond identity and access management, the company has moved into areas including identity governance. Meanwhile, Okta Privileged Access recently reached general availability and aims to offer differentiated capabilities including just-in-time infrastructure access.

OneTrust

Kabir Barday

Founder, CEO

OneTrust debuted an array of new offerings including AI governance, localized consent action, data catalog integration and third-party risk management. Meanwhile, with the recent introduction of new data policy configuration capabilities, OneTrust said it is seeking to enable improved data policy enforcement.

Ping Identity

Andre Durand

Founder, CEO

PingOne Neo, Ping Identity's new decentralized identity management offering, looks to enhance data security and privacy while simplifying the process of verifying information from internal and external sources. The company’s approach aims to minimize identity theft risks and bolster organizational security through instant trust establishment.

RSA

Rohit Ghai

CEO

RSA recently unveiled plans to support OAuth, a key open standard for delegating access. The move will lead to better protection of critical infrastructure through helping to enable delivery of improved identity security, including at the government level, according to the company.

Rubrik

Bipul Sinha

Co-Founder, CEO

Rubrik rolled out a GenAI powered tool, Ruby, that aims to enhance detection of data security threats as well as recovery and resilience for security operations professionals. The offering, available in the Rubrik Security Cloud platform, utilizes Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI technology as well as Rubrik’s Data Threat Engine.

SailPoint

Mark McClain

Founder, CEO

SailPoint's new next-generation multi-tenant identity security platform, Atlas, offers enhanced management and automation of access decisions. Meanwhile, SailPoint bolstered its platform through the acquisitions of third-party identity security provider SecZetta and access privileged management firm Osirium.

Saviynt

Sachin Nayyar

Founder, Chairman, CEO

Saviynt, which offers what it calls a “converged” identity platform, extended its capabilities through an integration with AWS Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer. This will enable enhanced visibility around user activity and access, as well as improved privileged access management.

Semperis

Mickey Bresman

Co-Founder, CEO

Semperis unveiled the extension of its tool for analyzing and managing attacks, Forest Druid, to include support for Microsoft’s Entra ID (formerly known as Azure Active Directory). Other key updates included the debut of a new security-centric offering for migration and consolidation of Active Directory systems.

Skyhigh Security

Gee Rittenhouse

CEO

Skyhigh’s recent product updates included the launch of capabilities for enabling secure usage of GenAI apps. Using a centralized enforcement console, the technology offers data protection and threat prevention across websites and SaaS apps, as well as IaaS environments and shadow IT.

Varonis

Yaki Faitelson

Co-Founder, Chairman, President, CEO

Varonis recently introduced third-party app risk management while expanding its data security posture management capabilities, including with deeper support for object storage and cloud databases in AWS and Microsoft Azure. It also added GenAI-powered capabilities to its platform with the introduction of Athena AI.

Zscaler

Jay Chaudhry

Founder, Chairman, CEO

Zscaler expanded its portfolio with new offerings including Zscaler Resilience, which offers the ability to keep interconnections to apps intact during a major security incident. The company also updated its data loss prevention product to thwart potential leakage of data into GenAI apps.