Cyber Security Team of the Year.
No analyst holds the line alone. This category honours the people who defend an organisation together, the ones who pick up the pager at 3am and hand the calm shift over at dawn, and the panel scores them on what they did together, not the tools they bought.
The 2026 Team of the Year
The Evalian Cybersecurity Team was named Cyber Security Team of the Year in 2026, recognised for the way its specialists work as one across testing, data protection and managed defence. The win sat among an organisational field that year that included Bridewell, Saviynt, THEOS Cyber Solutions and the ISC2 Security Congress.
A decade of winners sits in the Hall of Fame.
The criteria the panel scores against
Team entries are read against the same published criteria as every category, and three lines of evidence carry the most weight. First, results the team can point to: an outcome that changed because of how these people worked, with detail a judge can check. Second, the way the team operates together, how knowledge moves between shifts and how junior members are brought on. Third, the human side, whether the team kept its people through a hard year rather than burning them out.
The judges look for the team in the work, not the org chart around it. A reorganised reporting line or a new platform proves little on its own. What the team actually did with what it had proves a great deal.
What a winning record looks like
Strong nominations in this category tell a story with a before and an after. The team detected something earlier than it would have a year ago, or held its shape through an incident that would once have scattered it, or built a habit (a tabletop run every quarter, a blameless review after every alert) that quietly changed how the organisation defends itself. The contribution belongs to the group, and the evidence is checkable.
Weak nominations describe a function. A SOC that exists, a budget that grew, a tool that was deployed. The panel reads past the structure and looks for the moments only this team created, and what those moments produced for the people they protect.
Cyber Security Team of the Year
What kind of team can be nominated?
Any group of people who defend an organisation together and can show the outcomes of that work: an in-house SOC, a data protection function, a managed defence team, or a cross-functional group formed for a specific mission. Size is not the test; evidence of what the team did together is.
When was the category introduced?
In the 2026 restructure of the programme, which organised the awards into five individual categories and five organisational ones, with Team of the Year sitting alongside Company, Product, Service and Community.
Who won Cyber Security Team of the Year in 2026?
The Evalian Cybersecurity Team, recognised for the way its specialists work as one across testing, data protection and managed defence. You can read the citation on the Evalian winner page.
Can a team buy its way to recognition?
No. Every nomination is read in full, and recognition is judged on merit alone. It is never bought.