Top 10 Cybersecurity Companies by Market Cap

The digital economy now rests on a fragile foundation: trust that data, identities, and systems will stay secure. Every cloud migration, mobile banking app, and AI model running in production is effectively a bet on cybersecurity vendors doing their job well enough that customers never make the news.

That bet is getting more expensive. Estimates suggest cybercrime could cost businesses up to $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, and potentially as much as $15.6 trillion by 2029 when lost revenue, ransom payments, recovery costs, and reputational damage are combined.

At the same time, the global cybersecurity market is projected to grow from roughly $219 billion in 2025 to over $560 billion by 2032, a compound annual growth rate above 14%.

Within this rapidly expanding industry, a small group of companies has pulled ahead in scale and influence. Ranked by market capitalization, these are the firms investors are effectively voting to lead the defense of the digital economy.

This article examines the top 10 cybersecurity companies by market cap, explores how they make money, what roles they play in the security stack, and how they are positioning for an AI- and cloud-dominated future.

1. How “cybersecurity market cap” is defined

There are two important caveats before looking at the rankings:

1. Pure-play vs. diversified tech
   Giants like Microsoft, Broadcom, Cisco, and Google generate substantial security revenue, but they are diversified technology conglomerates. For this ranking, the focus is on companies that are:

   • Categorized under IT security / cybersecurity as their primary business, and

   • Listed explicitly in a dedicated “IT security / cybersecurity” market-cap ranking rather than as general software or hardware.

2. Data source and date
   Market caps and rankings come from CompaniesMarketCap’s “Largest IT Security Companies by Market Cap” category as of late November 2025. Values are approximate and rounded to two decimal places.

Under those rules, the top 10 cybersecurity companies by market cap are:

2. Top 10 cybersecurity companies by market cap

Table 1: Top 10 IT security companies by market cap (as of Nov 22, 2025)

Source: CompaniesMarketCap “Largest IT Security Companies by Market Cap” category, November 2025.

These ten firms sit at the intersection of several major trends:

• The shift from on-prem firewalls to cloud-delivered platforms

• The rise of identity and zero trust as the new perimeter

• The embedding of AI in both defense and attacks

• The expanding role of national security and critical infrastructure in cyber strategy

The rest of this article profiles each company and then pulls out the structural themes shaping the future of the sector.

3. Palo Alto Networks (PANW): The platform consolidator

Palo Alto Networks is the largest pure-play cybersecurity company in the world by both revenue and market cap. Its strategy has evolved from a next-generation firewall vendor into a broad platform provider spanning network security, secure access service edge (SASE), cloud security, and security operations.

Scale and growth

• Fiscal year 2025 revenue reached $9.2 billion, up 15% year-over-year.

• In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, revenue grew another 16% to about $2.5 billion, with strong subscription and support revenue.

• Next-generation security ARR now exceeds $5.6–5.9 billion, growing around 29–32% year-over-year.

Palo Alto’s differentiation lies in platformization: bundling network, endpoint, cloud, and security operations into a single fabric and using pricing and product integration to encourage customers to consolidate point solutions.

Strategic moves and M&A

Recent deals underscore how aggressively the company is extending its footprint:

• A $25 billion acquisition of CyberArk was announced in 2025, designed to bring identity security and privileged access management into Palo Alto’s platform.

• A $3.35 billion acquisition of observability provider Chronosphere adds cloud monitoring and telemetry to feed its AI-driven Cortex platform.

By absorbing both identity and observability, Palo Alto is positioning its AI agents not just to monitor security alerts, but to reason over performance data, identity signals, and network traffic.

Role in defending the digital economy

For large enterprises, Palo Alto increasingly represents:

• A one-stop security fabric for hybrid networks

• A way to reduce vendor sprawl and security operations complexity

• A central platform for AI-augmented detection and response

The flip side is vendor lock-in risk and strong dependency on one platform’s roadmap and pricing. That tension—consolidation vs. diversification—is one of the core strategic debates in modern cybersecurity.

4. CrowdStrike (CRWD): Cloud-native endpoint & XDR powerhouse

CrowdStrike is the dominant name in endpoint detection and response (EDR) and a leading vendor in extended detection and response (XDR) and next-gen SIEM.

Business model and financial engine

CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform was built in the cloud from day one, using lightweight agents on endpoints and a data lake back end. That architecture has translated into:

• ARR of $4.24 billion as of the end of fiscal 2025, up 23% year-over-year.

• Fiscal 2025 revenue of roughly $3.95 billion, growing about 29% year-over-year, with strong free cash flow.

• Gross dollar retention around 97%, reflecting high switching costs and broad use of additional modules by existing customers.

The company’s “land-and-expand” strategy – selling more product modules into the same customers – is central to its valuation.

AI and the next phase of growth

CrowdStrike is leaning heavily into AI:

• Its Next-Gen SIEM and cloud, identity, and data security modules now generate ARR over $1.5 billion and are growing above 40% year-over-year.

• Management has publicly targeted a path to $10 billion ARR by fiscal 2031.

CrowdStrike’s role in the digital economy is to act as the “sensor grid” for endpoints and workloads, turning raw telemetry into behavioral analytics that can detect and stop modern ransomware and nation-state attacks.

5. Cloudflare (NET): Security at the edge of the internet

Cloudflare sits at the intersection of content delivery, networking, and security. Originally known for its CDN and DDoS mitigation, it has grown into a key player in zero-trust access, web application security, and secure connectivity.

Platform and economics

Cloudflare’s business model is built on:

• A global edge network that handles enormous volumes of web traffic

• A mix of freemium and self-serve plans plus enterprise contracts

• A growing suite of security and developer services (WAF, bot management, SASE, secure web gateway, email security, etc.)

Its inclusion among the top three IT security companies by market cap reflects investor belief that security will be increasingly delivered from the network edge, tightly integrated with performance and reliability.

Strategic importance

In practice, Cloudflare:

• Protects millions of websites from attacks and outages

• Provides Zero Trust access and SASE that can replace traditional VPNs

• Serves as a neutral cloud-agnostic control plane for customers running across multiple hyperscalers

For the digital economy, this makes Cloudflare a kind of utility layer—part security provider, part performance optimizer, and part programmable edge platform.

6. Fortinet (FTNT): Security appliances with SaaS-style economics

Fortinet remains one of the most profitable companies in cybersecurity, powered by a mix of hardware appliances (FortiGate firewalls and switches) and fast-growing subscription services (FortiGuard, SASE, and SD-WAN).

Financial profile

• Q3 2025 revenue reached $1.72 billion, up 14% year-over-year, with strong billings and industry-leading operating margins.

• For fiscal 2025, Fortinet expects revenue in the $6.68–6.83 billion range.

Despite these solid results, Fortinet has seen sharp share-price volatility. A recent earnings beat was followed by a 25% stock drop as analysts questioned the durability of the firewall upgrade cycle and product growth.

Strategic positioning

Fortinet’s thesis is that:

• Security and networking will converge, especially at branch and campus edges

• Its custom ASICs and appliances offer performance and cost advantages

• SASE and security services layered on top of hardware can transform the revenue base into recurring subscription streams

In the broader digital economy, Fortinet remains essential for branch, campus, and data center protection, though it faces pressure from cloud-native offerings and platform consolidators like Palo Alto.

7. Zscaler (ZS): Zero-trust cloud security specialist

Zscaler is a pure cloud security vendor focused on zero-trust network access and secure web gateways delivered entirely as a service.

Growth and momentum

• Fiscal 2024 revenue reached about $2.17 billion, up roughly 34% year-over-year.

• By fiscal 2025, revenue grew further to around $2.67 billion, up about 23% year-over-year.

Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange now processes more than hundreds of billions of transactions daily, routing user traffic to applications without exposing the corporate network.

Why zero trust matters

Zscaler’s model is central to the new security architecture:

• Users connect directly to applications, not to a network perimeter

• Attack surface is reduced because corporate applications are never exposed to the public internet

• Security inspection happens in the cloud at massive scale, which is critical as encrypted traffic, remote work, and SaaS usage explode

For many enterprises, Zscaler is becoming the default gateway to the cloud, replacing legacy VPNs and on-prem proxies.

8. Leidos (LDOS): Cybersecurity at the national-security edge

Leidos is best known as a defense, intelligence, and large-scale systems integrator, but it is included here because of its substantial mission-critical cybersecurity business serving governments and critical infrastructure.

Scale and earnings power

• Leidos generated $16.7 billion in revenue in fiscal 2024, with about $4.4 billion in Q4 alone.

• In Q3 2025, revenue reached $4.47 billion, up 6.7% year-over-year, and the company raised its full-year profit outlook.

Leidos’ national security and digital businesses include:

• Cybersecurity services for US and allied government agencies

• Threat detection and incident response for critical infrastructure

• Classified programs and large multi-year contracts (including NATO cyber initiatives).

Role in the digital economy

Compared to pure-play software vendors, Leidos is:

• Less about product subscriptions, more about solutions, integration, and long-term services

• Deeply tied to geopolitics and defense spending cycles

• A critical provider of cyber capabilities that underpin military, intelligence, and national infrastructure resilience

Its inclusion among the top IT security companies reflects the reality that state-level cyber defense and commercial cybersecurity are increasingly intertwined.

9. CyberArk Software (CYBR): Securing the keys to the kingdom

CyberArk is the clear leader in privileged access management (PAM) – securing admin and machine identities that, if compromised, can give attackers broad control across an enterprise.

Growth vector

CyberArk has posted strong growth in both license and SaaS subscriptions; recent quarters saw revenue growth around the mid-40% range with expanding profitability.

The strategic importance of PAM is straightforward:

• Attackers often seek privileged credentials (admin accounts, service accounts, keys) early in the kill chain

• Compromised privileged access enables lateral movement and large-scale exfiltration

• Regulations and frameworks like NIST, PCI, and Zero Trust maturity models explicitly call out privileged access controls

Palo Alto’s bid and consolidation

Palo Alto’s roughly $25 billion acquisition deal for CyberArk shows how critical identity and privilege have become to platform vendors.

If the deal closes as expected in fiscal 2026, CyberArk will eventually disappear as a standalone public company but will likely become even more influential as the identity “brain” inside Palo Alto’s platform.

10. Check Point Software (CHKP): The original firewall pioneer

Check Point, founded in Israel in the early 1990s, is one of the original innovators in commercial firewall technology and remains a foundational vendor in network security.

Business profile

• Check Point now combines next-generation firewalls, cloud security, endpoint security, and threat intelligence in its Infinity architecture.

• The company emphasizes profitability and cash flow over hyper-growth, trading at lower revenue multiples than newer cloud-native peers.

Check Point’s competitive strengths include:

• Deep experience with high-security environments (finance, government, defense)

• A reputation for stability and predictable operations

• A growing suite of cloud and email security offerings to complement its firewall base

Its role in the digital economy is less headline-grabbing than some newer names but remains crucial for network-centric defenses in highly regulated industries.

11. Gen Digital (GEN): Consumer and small-business cyber at scale

Gen Digital (formerly NortonLifeLock, now the parent company of brands like Norton, Avast, Avira, AVG, and others) is one of the few large cybersecurity players focused primarily on:

• Consumers

• Very small businesses

• Identity theft protection and privacy tools

Scale and positioning

• As of late 2025, Gen’s market cap stands around $15–16 billion. The company provides antivirus, VPN, identity monitoring, and privacy solutions to tens of millions of endpoints globally, along with SMB security offerings.

Gen’s importance to the digital economy is often underestimated: it provides front-line protection for non-enterprise users, who are increasingly targeted by credential theft, phishing, and financial scams.

12. Okta (OKTA): Identity as the new perimeter

Okta is one of the leading independent providers of identity and access management (IAM), competing with both specialist vendors and large cloud platforms.

Financial trajectory

• Fiscal year 2025 revenue reached about $2.57–2.88 billion annualized, with quarterly revenue around $682–728 million, growing low-teens year-over-year.

• Okta maintains high gross margins near 77%, underscoring the software-only economics of its identity platform.

Strategic significance

Okta’s thesis is that identity is the control plane for modern security:

• Users, devices, and workloads must be authenticated and authorized continuously

• Zero-trust policies depend heavily on who (or what) is requesting access, not just where they come from

• Identity data is an extremely powerful signal for anomaly detection and AI-driven risk scoring

Okta is also embedding AI into its platform to improve risk-based access and automate security decisions, aligning identity management with the AI-era threat landscape.

13. How these leaders collectively defend the digital economy

Individually, each company focuses on a distinct segment; collectively, they form a multi-layered security fabric that underpins modern commerce.

13.1 Network & edge security

• Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Check Point, Cloudflare, Zscaler

• Protect traffic at different layers: data center, branch, cloud edge, and application edge

• Provide firewalls, intrusion prevention, web application firewalls, and SASE

These vendors are essential for securing connectivity—without them, common attacks like DDoS, injection, and lateral movement would be far easier and more frequent.

13.2 Endpoint, workload & operations

• CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, SentinelOne (just outside the top 10), Gen Digital

• Protect servers, laptops, mobile devices, and cloud workloads

• Provide EDR/XDR, threat hunting, and increasingly AI-driven security operations

They are the eyes and ears inside endpoints, turning low-level telemetry into detection signals that can identify stealthy attackers.

13.3 Identity and privileged access

• CyberArk, Okta, Gen Digital, Microsoft and others outside this list

• Manage authentication, single sign-on, MFA, PAM, and machine identities

• Act as the core enforcement point for zero-trust policies

As attackers increasingly target identity systems rather than perimeters, this layer becomes the choke point for many high-impact breaches.

13.4 Government, defense & critical infrastructure

• Leidos, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Check Point

• Deliver comprehensive solutions and services to governments, militaries, and critical infrastructure operators

• Provide both technical capabilities and personnel to monitor, detect, and respond to nation-state threats

This work is less visible, but it protects elections, utilities, transportation, and military systems that civilians and businesses rely on every day.

14. Structural trends shaping these companies

14.1 Platformization vs. best-of-breed

A central tension in cybersecurity is whether organizations should:

• Consolidate onto a few large platforms (Palo Alto, Fortinet, CrowdStrike, Zscaler, Okta), or

• Mix and match best-of-breed solutions (e.g., combining CrowdStrike for endpoint, Zscaler for zero trust, CyberArk for PAM, Okta for identity).

Platform vendors argue that:

• Consolidation lowers total cost of ownership

• Fewer agents and consoles reduce operational complexity

• Integrated data yields better AI-driven detection

Best-of-breed advocates counter that:

• No single vendor can innovate fastest in every category

• Lock-in reduces negotiating leverage and flexibility

• Some niche threats require specialized tools

The current market cap rankings suggest investors expect platform vendors to capture a disproportionate share of profits, but the existence of strong specialists like CyberArk and Okta shows there is still room for focused leaders.

14.2 AI as both an enabler and a threat

Most top-10 vendors now emphasize AI in earnings calls and product launches:

• Palo Alto’s acquisitions and guidance highlight AI agents for security operations and observability.

• CrowdStrike positions Falcon as an AI-native platform, with AI assisting analysts and automating response.

• Zscaler, Okta, and others embed AI in risk scoring, anomaly detection, and policy automation.

At the same time, adversaries use AI to:

• Generate more convincing phishing campaigns

• Automate vulnerability discovery

• Evade traditional pattern-based detection

The top cybersecurity companies are effectively in an arms race to deploy more advanced AI faster than attackers and smaller competitors.

14.3 Regulation and compliance as growth drivers

Rising regulatory pressure is another tailwind:

• Data protection and privacy laws (GDPR, CCPA, etc.)

• Sector-specific security requirements in finance, healthcare, and critical infrastructure

• Government mandates around zero trust architectures and supply-chain security

These rules create non-discretionary budgets – especially for identity, logging, and access control – that benefit large, well-established vendors.

14.4 Consolidation and M&A

The proposed Palo Alto–CyberArk deal and earlier high-profile acquisitions like Google’s bid for Wiz mark a new phase of consolidation.

The logic is clear:

• Large vendors need differentiated capabilities (PAM, identity, observability, cloud security) to maintain platform leadership

• Well-funded start-ups find exit opportunities in being acquired rather than trying to compete across the full stack

• Customers gain tighter integration but must manage the risk of fewer independent options

Expect more M&A as the sector matures—and as AI infrastructure, data security, and OT/IoT security become the next frontiers.

15. Investor and enterprise takeaways

For investors

The top 10 cybersecurity companies by market cap share several characteristics:

• Strong exposure to recurring revenue and long-term contracts

• Structural tailwinds from digital transformation, cloud, and remote work

• Increasing use of AI and data network effects to build defensible moats

But there are significant risks:

• Valuation: Many trade at high multiples relative to broader software markets, making them sensitive to interest rates and sentiment.

• Competition from hyperscalers: Cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft, and Google bundle security services with infrastructure, potentially compressing margins.

• Product transitions: Shifts from hardware to cloud subscriptions, or from legacy modules to new platforms, can cause short-term volatility even when long-term positioning is sound (as seen with Fortinet’s firewall refresh cycle concerns).

For enterprises and governments

The ranking offers a map of the vendor landscape, not a prescription:

• Most organizations will use multiple vendors from this list, depending on existing investments and architectural choices.

• Securing the digital economy requires a layered approach – network + endpoint + identity + data + operations – rather than betting on a single company.

• Vendor selection should increasingly factor in:

  • Depth and openness of API ecosystems

  • Quality of AI models and detection

  • Clarity of roadmap for zero trust and cloud security

  • Ability to integrate with existing IT and OT environments

16. Looking ahead: What could reshuffle this ranking?

Several forces could shift the leaderboard over the next five years:

1. AI-native security start-ups
   New entrants that use foundation models and proprietary data to automate detection and response may grow rapidly and become acquisition targets or standalone challengers.

2. Data and observability convergence
   Observability vendors and data platforms (e.g., logging, SIEM, data lakes) increasingly overlap with security analytics. Palo Alto’s Chronosphere deal is an early sign of this convergence.

3. OT, IoT, and industrial cyber
   As critical infrastructure, manufacturing, and healthcare become more connected, specialized vendors in operational technology (OT) security may grow in importance and market cap.

4. Regulatory fragmentation and digital sovereignty
   Regional rules (e.g., EU data residency, national cyber frameworks) may favor vendors with local infrastructure and compliance capabilities, potentially elevating regional champions.

17. Conclusion

The top 10 cybersecurity companies by market cap represent the firms that markets currently trust to defend the digital economy at scale.

• Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Fortinet, Zscaler, Cloudflare, and Okta anchor the cloud and zero-trust transformation.

• CyberArk and Gen Digital secure identities and consumers, the human attack surface.

• Check Point and Leidos bridge the past and future—grounded in traditional network security and national defense, yet adapting to cloud and AI-driven threats.

Collectively, they sit at the front line of a conflict where the stakes are measured not just in dollars, but in economic stability, privacy, and national security. As cybercrime costs continue to rise into the trillions and digital systems permeate every sector, these companies—and the ecosystem around them—will shape how safe the next decade of digital growth really is.