Revealed: The UK's best security vendors

17 UK firms make global list of top 500 security firms

BT and Clearswift are the best UK security firms and are among the greatest in the world, according to a new league table ranking the world's best security companies.

The Cybersecurity500 list was first launched in February and featured mainly US-based companies, but its second iteration, which came out this month, featured a growing number of European firms.

Of the UK-based businesses appearing on the list of the 500 best security firms, BT was top, followed by data-loss-prevention player Clearswift. The duo came in 10th and 78th place respectively in the global rankings.

Cambridge-based end-point security firm Centre Tools was the third-best UK firm on the list, followed by Sophos and cyber-analytics firm Silobreaker which came in fourth and fifth place respectively (full list below).

Steve Morgan, chief executive of Cybersecurity Ventures, which ranked the firms, said the companies that made the cut were recommended by end users.

"We continuously look at thousands of companies for inclusion in the Cybersecurity 500, by soliciting feedback from CISOs, IT security practitioners and service providers, and researching hundreds of cybersecurity events and news sources that we follow," he said.

"The Cybersecurity 500 does not rank companies by revenues, employees, or annual growth. We do not think a list of the largest cybersecurity companies is useful to our target audience of cyber and IT security decision makers, evaluators, and recommenders. They already know who the biggest vendors are. Instead, we give a nod to the hottest and most innovative companies."

Hottest UK security vendors (global position)

1. BT – security solutions (10)
2. Clearswift – data loss prevention (78)
3. Centre Tools – end-point security (91)
4. Sophos – antivirus (106)
5. Silobreaker – cyberanalytics (132)
6. Swivel Secure – risk authentication (197)
7. Digital Shadows – cyberintelligence (219)
8. Smoothwall – unified threat management (250)
9. Darktrace – cyberthreat prevention (311)
10. Acunetix – web scanning (350)
11. Portswigger – security testing (354)
12. Wandera – secure-gateway testing (358)
13. BAE Systems – cybersecurity (370)
14. SentryBay – mobile security (455)
15. Citicus – risk compliance (467)
16. Protectimus – two-factor authentication (487)
17. Bolden James – secure messaging (493)