WatchGuard keeps winning the world’s top cyber security awards

Think Technology Australia’s cyber security partner WatchGuard has built a track record that is hard to overlook. Across 2025 and into 2026, the company has collected major awards from several of the most credible bodies in the industry, each judged independently and covering different product lines. As a WatchGuard Gold Partner, we think that matters for the businesses we look after across Queensland.

Best Cybersecurity Company at the 2026 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards

The headline result: in a field assessed by independent cybersecurity practitionersWatchGuard was named Best Cybersecurity Company at the 2026 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards. The annual program is reviewed by a jury of cybersecurity practitioners, analysts, and CISOs, and assesses nominees on measurable innovation across the market. For a vendor whose core customer base is small and mid-sized businesses, winning the top company category is a meaningful result. You can see the full security solutions we offer through this partnership on our site.

Best Authentication Technology at the 2025 SC Awards

SC Media’s annual SC Awards have run for more than 25 years and are widely regarded as one of the most rigorous peer-assessed programs in the industry. WatchGuard’s AuthPoint MFA (multi-factor authentication) took out Best Authentication Technology in 2025, beating strong competition from across the market.

AuthPoint has come a long way from its early push-notification roots. As of 2026, it supports phishing-resistant FIDO2 passkeys, zero trust policies, geolocation-based access controls, and now works as an External MFA provider for Microsoft Entra ID. That last update is significant: businesses using Microsoft 365 with Entra ID as their identity platform can now run AuthPoint for all their MFA needs, across endpoints, VPNs, and cloud apps, from a single WatchGuard Cloud console. No on-premises Active Directory required.

For Brisbane SMEs running Microsoft 365, this means one less tool to manage and a single pane of glass for identity security. Our Microsoft 365 support team works with clients on exactly this kind of integration.

Cyber Defense Magazine: three wins including XDR, MDR, and Zero Trust

Cyber Defense Magazine also recognised WatchGuard in three categories: Next Gen Extended Detection and Response (XDR), Best Service Managed Detection and Response (MDR), and Best Solution Zero Trust. These three categories reflect how WatchGuard has expanded well beyond its origins as a firewall vendor.

The Unified Security Platform now covers network security, endpoint security, identity security, and managed detection and response, all managed from WatchGuard Cloud. For an SME without a dedicated security team, that consolidation is practical. One vendor, one console, one relationship to manage.

A consistent record, not a one-off result

The awards above are recent highlights, but the pattern goes back further. WatchGuard has earned CRN’s five-star Partner Program Guide rating for ten consecutive years as of 2026. It was named Champion in the 2025 Canalys Cybersecurity Leadership Matrix for the third year running, an assessment that scores vendors on channel partner ratings alongside market performance. It also won the TrustRadius Buyer’s Choice Award in 2026 across all three major product lines: Network Security, Endpoint Security, and AuthPoint.

Consistency across different evaluators and different product categories is what makes the record credible. Any vendor can win one award in one year. Winning across independent programs, repeatedly, across firewall, endpoint, and identity products, tells a different story.

What this means for businesses we support in Queensland

TTA is a WatchGuard Gold Partner. That means we are a certified installer of WatchGuard’s award-winning products, and our team has direct access to WatchGuard technical support and training. When we recommend a WatchGuard product to a client, we are not guessing at fit. We know the platform.

The products most relevant to SMEs we work with include:

• AuthPoint MFA, for securing logins to Windows, macOS, VPNs, Microsoft 365, and cloud apps.
• Firebox network security appliances, which put enterprise-grade threat protection on the network edge without requiring a large IT team to manage them.
• WatchGuard Endpoint Security (EPDR), which confirmed 100% attack detection and 100% threat prevention in the 2024 MITRE ATT&CK evaluation.

All three products are cloud-managed through WatchGuard Cloud. There is no expensive on-premises management server to maintain. For businesses with 10 to 100 users, that is a significant practical advantage. Our IT security assessments often identify gaps that these products directly address.

AuthPoint and cyber insurance requirements

One area where we see AuthPoint come up more often is cyber insurance. Insurers are increasingly asking whether businesses have phishing-resistant MFA in place, not just standard push-notification MFA. AuthPoint’s FIDO2 passkeys are cryptographically bound to the legitimate domain, so fake login pages cannot capture credentials. This is the type of control insurers and frameworks like the ACSC Essential Eight are pointing businesses toward. If your current cyber insurance renewal is coming up, it is worth checking whether your MFA setup meets the current requirements. We cover this in our cyber insurance compliance work with clients.

Talk to us about WatchGuard

If you want to know whether WatchGuard products are a good fit for your business, we are happy to walk you through the options. No pressure, just a straight conversation about what you need and whether what we offer matches it. Get in touch with the TTA team to get started.