2026 SC Award winner Silverfort — Best Identity Management Solution

Identity-based attacks have become one of the more urgent concerns in cybersecurity. As enterprises continue to operate legacy infrastructure, cloud platforms, automation and AI-driven systems, the number and type of identities requiring protection has exploded. Human users are now only part of the equation; service accounts, machine identities and AI agents increasingly hold privileged access across hybrid environments. 

By centering its platform on the realities of today’s expanded identity perimeter, Silverfort distinguished itself as the winner of the Identity and Access Management category in the 2026 SC Awards. 

At the core of its offering is Runtime Access Protection (RAP), a patented technology that evaluates authentication and access attempts in real time. Rather than relying solely on static policies, RAP analyzes each request inline and can enforce adaptive controls — including multi-factor authentication (MFA), conditional access, access restrictions and just-in-time privilege elevation before access is granted. The goal is to prevent lateral movement and privilege escalation at the point of authentication. 

In June 2025, Silverfort expanded its Non-Human Identity (NHI) security capabilities into cloud environments, to provide unified discovery, visibility and protection for service accounts, workloads and machine identities across both on-premises and cloud infrastructure.  

The company also introduced AI Agent Security, positioning AI agents as autonomous identities with credentials and permissions, requiring governance similar to human users. This capability ties agents to accountable human ownership, enforces least-privilege access, applies real-time policy guardrails and monitors behavioral anomalies to detect misuse or drift. 

Later in the year, Silverfort released two additional platform capabilities: Identity Graph & Inventory, which maps identities and their relationships across environments, and Access Intelligence, which analyzes real-world access patterns to identify risk and dynamically enforce policy. 

SC Media Awards judge Vatsal Gupta, senior security architect at Apple, said the company’s pace of development was a key differentiator. “Frequent innovation and a clear roadmap aligned to emerging identity threats reinforce Silverfort’s position as a leader in identity security, particularly in complex hybrid environments,” Gupta said. 

Silverfort operates on a subscription-based model and integrates directly with existing identity and access management (IAM) systems without requiring agents, proxies or application modifications , intended to reduce deployment friction and lower operational overhead.  

“Silverfort shows strong market traction with over 1,000 enterprise customers, high growth, and near-perfect retention across highly regulated industries. SaaS-based deployment with no agents or application changes delivers fast time-to-value and low total cost of ownership at scale,” said Gupta.