Cyber Security Community of the Year.
No defender holds the line alone. Behind the practitioners sits the room where they learn, compare notes and find their next role. This category honours the community, network or event that built that room, and the panel scores what it does for the people inside it.
The 2026 Community of the Year
ISC2 Security Congress was named Cyber Security Community of the Year in 2026. The annual gathering convenes the members of ISC2, the body behind the CISSP certification, for shared learning across hundreds of sessions and a global membership that spans the early-career analyst sitting an entry exam and the practitioner who has held the line for twenty years. The panel recognised a programme that keeps people in the field and moves practice between them.
A decade of winners sits in the Hall of Fame.
What the panel scores
Community is a slippery thing to judge, so the panel scores it on what the members get, not on what the organisers say. Four questions carry most of the weight.
Does it move knowledge? The strongest communities take a lesson learned the hard way inside one organisation and pass it to the rest before they learn it the hard way too. Does it bring people in? A community that only serves the people already in the room is a smaller thing than one that opens a door for the analyst who has no contacts and no obvious route. Does it keep people in the field? Burnout and isolation push good defenders out; the panel reads for the community that gives them a reason to stay. And does it raise the floor? A winning record shows practice improving across the people it touches, not a single headline event.
What a winning record looks like
Strong nominations show a before and an after in the people, not the programme. Members who found their first role through it, a practice that spread from one talk into a dozen organisations, a newcomer who is now the one mentoring others. The community’s fingerprints are on that change, and the evidence is checkable.
Weak nominations count attendance. Headcount at an event, followers on a channel, sessions on a schedule. The panel reads past the numbers and looks for what changed for the defenders who took part.
The communities that came before
The 2026 restructure introduced the Community of the Year name, but the programme has recognised the rooms where defenders gather for far longer. The Not for Profit Team of the Year ran across most editions from 2015 onward, and earlier holders read as an honest history of the same idea. The Cloud Security Alliance took it in 2015. Cyber Security Challenge UK, which has put more newcomers in front of a first cyber role than most, was recognised in 2021. The Cyber Threat Alliance, where rival vendors share intelligence rather than hoard it, held the related Not For Profit Team honour in 2022. ISC2 itself appears in the 2025 record, recognised for its One Million Certified in Cybersecurity programme before the Congress took the Community award outright in 2026.
Cyber Security Community of the Year
What counts as a community for this category?
A community, network, membership body, not-for-profit, or recurring event that brings defenders together. The test is what it does for its members, not its legal form or size.
When was the category introduced?
In the 2026 restructure of the programme, which organised the awards into five individual categories and five organisation ones. Earlier editions recognised the same idea through the Not for Profit Team of the Year.
Who won Cyber Security Community of the Year in 2026?
ISC2 Security Congress, the annual gathering of ISC2 members, recognised for moving practice between defenders and keeping people in the field.
Can our community pay to be considered?
No. Every nomination is read in full, and recognition is judged on merit. It cannot be bought, sponsored into, or lobbied for.
How do we nominate a community?
Through the nomination form. The strongest entries show what changed for the members, with evidence the panel can check, rather than attendance figures.