CRN’s 2024 Security 100 List: 20 Coolest Network Security Companies

Here is a list of 20 important network security companies, ranging from those that provide SASE platforms to those that specialize in protecting IoT and connected devices.

As anyone following along will attest, the market for network security has seen a significant upheaval in the last ten years due to the weakening of corporate network firewalls, especially with the widespread adoption of remote and hybrid work arrangements by employers. This has caused many vendors (like Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, and Cisco) who were previously experts in next-generation firewalls to accelerate their adoption of the secure access service edge (SASE) model.

Other suppliers, like Cato Networks, who initially made their name in SD-WAN have since emerged as significant competitors in SASE. In order to enable secure remote access to applications, data, and other corporate resources, SASE integrates security components with SD-WAN, including zero trust network access (ZTNA), secure web gateway (SWG), and cloud access security broker (CASB) capabilities.

Apart from SASE, Armis, Claroty, Dragos, and Forescout are other significant vendors that support the protection of extended modern networks, which frequently include IoT and operational technology (OT) systems.

Here is a look at the 20 network security companies that made our Security 100 for 2024, ranging from those that provide SASE platforms to those that specialize in protecting IoT and connected devices.

1. Armis

Yevgeny Dibrov
Co-Founder, CEO

Natural language queries are now possible thanks to the integration of several new GenAI features into Armis’ cyber exposure management platform Centrix. The Armis Centrix platform now allows users to query the asset intelligence engine of the company using natural language regarding threats and vulnerabilities as well as device security issues.

2. Cato Networks

Shlomo Kramer
Co-Founder, CEO

Cato Networks brought improvements with its SASE Cloud platform, which combined Cato SDWAN with Cato SSE 360. One of the new features was the expansion of its zero-trust network access technology to office users. As per the company, the purpose of the extension is to protect organizations from the increasing risk of insider threats.

3. Check Point Software

Technologies
Gil Shwed

Founder and CEO of Check Point, the company’s Quantum Gateways platform now offers robust security and optimal network and internet connection performance thanks to the introduction of its in-house SDWAN offering, a crucial component of the SASE platform. A $490 million acquisition of Perimeter 81 was recently made by Check Point.

4. Cisco Systems

Chuck Robbins
Chair, CEO

Cisco has been expanding support for Cisco SD-WAN (Viptela) and Meraki SD-WAN on its secure access service edge platform, in addition to pushing the development of its traditional network security offerings. The security-focused data platform Splunk is expected to be acquired by Cisco for a planned $28 billion.

5. Claroty

Yaniv Vardi
CEO

Claroty upgraded its capabilities for managing risks and vulnerabilities associated with cyber-physical systems. New features that have been added recently include the ability to upload software bill of materials files, improved workflows for vulnerability prioritization, and a new scoring framework for better estimating cyber risk.

6. Corelight

Brian Dye
CEO

Expanded AI-powered capabilities for attack detection and context-rich security data enrichment were among the new products introduced by Corelight. Additionally, Corelight added fresh deep learning methods for identifying rogue URLs and domains.

7. Dragos

Robert M. Lee
Co-Founder, CEO

Dragos announced a broader collaboration with CrowdStrike, resulting in two more integrations for data sharing amongst the main security vendors. One of the new features was that the Dragos Platform could use data from CrowdStrike’s Falcon Insight for IoT offering.

8. ExtraHop

Greg Clark
CEO

The massive machine learning data set of network detection and response startup ExtraHop was recently made available to the public. The company is attempting to counter security threats like domain-generated algorithms, which is why it is making its 16 million row data set open source.

9. Forescout

Barry Mainz
CEO

A risk score is produced by Forescout’s Risk and Exposure Management solution, which compiles data from all connected asset sources. This offering helps to improve an organization’s awareness of its cyberrisk posture and facilitates improved device discovery and classification.

10. Fortinet

Ken Xie
Founder, Chairman, CEO

Fortinet announced updates to its FortiSASE platform’s secure access service edge, which improved the integration with FortiGate Secure Edge and allowed for more distributed work. Together with the new FortiGate 90G firewall, it also introduced the first firewall to ship with its fifth-generation SPU technology.

11. Gigamon

Shane Buckley
President, CEO

New Precryption technology was added to Gigagom’s Deep Observability Pipeline platform to improve visibility through encrypted traffic. Better detection of threats that try to hide behind encryption is the goal of the updates included in the Giga-VUE 6.4 software release.

12. Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Antonio Neri
President, CEO

To improve its secure access service edge offering, HPE purchased Axis Security. With the integration of Axis’ security service edge technology and HPE Aruba’s networking platform—which includes SD-WAN from Silver Peak’s acquisition—the company hopes to provide the “most comprehensive” offering in SASE.

13. Illumio

Andrew Rubin
Co-Founder, CEO

With the release ofCloudSecure, Illumio increased the scope of its zero trust segmentation portfolio. This product is designed to help contain attacks in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Proactive implementation of segmentation controls, flexible segmentation policies, and visualization of cloud workload connectivity are examples of key capabilities.

14. Infoblox

Scott Harrell
President, CEO

The DNS security company Infloblox has released new updates, one of which is Lookalike Domain Monitoring, which is designed to identify websites that pretend to be corporate brands. The introduction of threat intelligence data feeds pertaining to new threats is one of the other updates.

15. Ivanti

Jeff Abbott
CEO

One of Ivanti’s major updates was a collaboration with Lookout, a mobile security company, which enhanced the Ivanti Neurons platform’s ability to defend against mobile threats. Proactive defense against mobile device threats and enhanced controls required to fulfill compliance requirements are made possible by the integration.

16. Juniper Networks

Rami Rahim
CEO

Recently, Juniper Networks, which has reached an agreement to be acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise for $14 billion, added a new, more flexible Connected Security Distributed Services Architecture to its portfolio.

17. Palo Alto Networks

Nikesh Arora
Chairman, CEO

Palo Alto Networks introduced Cloud NGFW for Azure, extending its next-generation firewall technology to Microsoft Azure. Palo Alto Networks announced new features for its secure access service edge platform, Prisma SASE, including native integration of AIOps, which increases automation of IT operations.

18. SonicWall

Bob VanKirk
President, CEO

SonicWall made the purchasing process easier for MSSPs and MSPs by introducing monthly firewall security services bundles. By acquiring Banyan Security, a security service edge business that facilitates the adoption of a zero trust posture, the company also increased the scope of its secure access service edge platform.

19. Vectra AI

Hitesh Sheth
President, CEO

With its new attack detection and response platform, Vectra AI, security operations teams can now better prioritize threats by using patented AI-powered technology called Attack Signal Intelligence. Analysis of the actions of attackers on endpoints, public clouds, identities, SaaS, and networks is included.

20. WatchGuard Technologies

Prakash Panjwani
CEO

A new series of firewalls from WatchGuard’s Firebox portfolio was introduced with the goal of giving remote and dispersed businesses better performance. It also disclosed the acquisition of CyGlass Technology Services, which allowed it to enhance its network detection and response capabilities.