The Best Government Cybersecurity Companies in 2026

Quick answer: The cybersecurity companies agencies most often evaluate for connected devices in 2026 include Asimily, Forescout, Armis, Ordr, Claroty, Axonius, Tenable, Microsoft Defender for IoT, and Palo Alto Networks. Asimily fits agencies that need one normalized inventory of cameras, building systems, and facility OT, priorities based on exploitability, and segmentation simulated before enforcement, deployed on premises for federal use. Forescout fits agencies that want its own NAC and FedRAMP High cloud services.

A government security team must protect networks that carry far more than laptops and servers. IP cameras, building automation controllers, badge readers, printers, and operational technology in facilities and labs sit on the same networks as agency systems. Most of these devices cannot run an endpoint agent. Federal civilian agencies are also expected to find and report their assets on a fixed schedule, so any device missing from the inventory is missing from that reporting. In a September 30, 2026 report, GAO found that 15 of 22 major civilian agencies had inventories of networked IoT and OT devices, and seven met all of OMB’s requirements (MeriTalk).

A good security partner for that environment finds every asset across IoT, OT, and IT, including the field devices behind building controllers. It then highlights which exposures an attacker could actually exploit on your network and isolates devices that cannot defend themselves, without disrupting mission systems.

This guide covers the criteria that separate agency-ready platforms from general security tools. It also provides a side-by-side view of the companies that appear most often in government evaluations and explains where each one fits. It focuses on U.S. federal civilian and defense environments. Asimily publishes this guide and includes itself in the analysis. Our descriptions draw on public positioning, technical approaches, and our own market research and conversations. Please take this into account and perform your own independent assessment.

The Best Government Cybersecurity Companies at a Glance

Asimily appears first as the publisher; the order of the other companies is not a ranking.

Company	Primary approach	Best fit for
Asimily	Agentless visibility with normalized, unified asset inventory data, exploitability analysis that separates risk from severity, and microsegmentation via Segmentation Orchestration with Policy Simulation across IoT, OT, and IT, plus Configuration Control to snapshot known good states.	Agencies that need to move from a unified, normalized device inventory to enforced segmentation without disrupting mission systems. (Note: Asimily is not currently FedRAMP authorized, and thus for federal customers operates in its on-premises mode.)
Forescout	Device discovery, classification, and network access control across IT, OT, and IoT	Agencies that want visibility and network access control from one vendor, independent of their switch vendor’s platform
Armis	Agentless asset intelligence and exposure management across IT, OT, IoT, and cloud	Agencies standardized on ServiceNow workflows
Ordr	AI-driven device profiling and least-privilege policy across converged IT and OT	Converged networks that protect devices through segmentation only, with AI-assisted policy applied through existing firewalls and switches
Claroty	Cyber-physical systems protection: asset management, exposure management, network protection, secure access, and threat detection	Agencies that need secure remote access for vendors
Axonius	Asset aggregation from existing IT, security, cloud, and SaaS tools into one inventory	IT-led teams reconciling asset data already held in other tools
Tenable	OT vulnerability management with passive monitoring and active device queries, inside Tenable One	Teams that want OT findings in the same tool they use for IT vulnerability management
Microsoft Defender for IoT	Agentless network sensors for OT and IoT monitoring	Agencies with large existing investments in Microsoft security tools
Palo Alto Networks	Next-generation firewalls, OT security services, and XDR across IT and OT	Agencies extending an existing Palo Alto deployment to facilities

What to Look for in a Government Cybersecurity Company

Government environments break assumptions that most security tools are built on: many devices can’t take agents, asset reporting runs on a fixed clock, and a blocked connection can stop a building, a lab, or a mission system. Use these six criteria to test whether a platform was built for agency networks:

1. Visibility Across Offices, Labs, and Facilities

• Agentless Discovery: Discovers IP cameras, building automation controllers and the sensors behind them, badge readers, printers, and facility OT, captured agentlessly into a unified inventory with normalized data across live operations.
• Multi-Facility Topology: Provides clear network topology across many buildings and campuses, using appropriately sized sensors to avoid unnecessary costs at small field offices.
• Unified Asset Coverage: Normalizes IoT and IT assets that may share the same network with agency systems, so no device is left out of discovery and reporting.

2. Prioritization by Exploitability Using Likelihood and Mission Impact

• Contextual Exploitability: Determines whether a vulnerability is actually exploitable on a specific device in your topology, going beyond generic CVSS base scores.
• Mission Impact Focus: Prioritizes risk reduction while protecting mission continuity, which matters when discovery and vulnerability enumeration repeat every few days or weeks and produce long lists.
• Actionable Output: Delivers a short, ranked list of decisions, each with a documented reason for its ranking.

3. Segmentation You Can Prove Before You Deploy

• Native Policy Integration: Generates policies in native formats for existing tools like NACs (e.g., Cisco ISE) and firewalls to overcome segmentation project stalls.
• Traffic Previews: Simulates policy impact against real, observed traffic to prevent unexpected disruptions before enforcement, then keeps policy current as devices change.
• No Re-Addressing: Avoids risky re-IP projects for building and lab devices by working directly on existing network infrastructure.

4. Protection for Devices That Can’t Run Agents or Take Patches

• Compensating Controls: Recommends targeted mitigations (e.g., disabling unused services, updating default credentials, microsegmentation) for connected devices that lack compatible endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools, as OMB memorandum M-22-09 notes.
• Selective Patching: Shrinks overall attack surface by identifying and updating devices that can safely receive firmware updates, such as supported IP cameras, printers and other devices built for frequent firmware updates where downtime is less critical.

5. Continuous Monitoring and Forensic Evidence

• Protocol-Aware Detection: Understands the protocols building and facility systems run, such as BACnet and Modbus, among many others, and monitors for configuration drift alongside anomalous behavior.
• Targeted Packet Capture: Provides native packet capture for a specific device during an incident to streamline investigation.
• Custom Rule Wizard: Enables teams to easily create detection rules through a guided Wizard without writing complex code (such as YAML) for emerging or industry-specific threats.

6. Compliance and Procurement Evidence

• Regulatory Alignment: Supports continuous compliance across CISA Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 23-01, BOD 26-02, OMB M-22-09, NIST SP 800-53, and, for defense contractors, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC).
• Continuous Audit Records: Maintains an automated, audit-ready record of enforced controls, asset inventories, and changes on demand.
• Procurement Credentials: Treats FedRAMP authorization as a separate question to verify directly with each vendor. Note: Asimily is not FedRAMP authorized; federal customers can deploy it on premises, where FedRAMP cloud authorization does not apply.

The Best Government Cybersecurity Companies in 2026

1. Asimily

Asimily is an asset protection platform covering IoT, OT, middleware, AI agents, servers, and endpoints. For government agencies, it unifies cameras, badge readers, printers, building systems, and facility OT with the IT network in one normalized inventory to pinpoint risk and contain the devices that carry the most.

Discovery is agentless, combining passive network analysis with safe queries. ATT&CK Analysis measures compromise likelihood based on segmentation, patching, and context to separate risk from severity.

Segmentation Orchestration simulates and applies policy through existing NACs and firewalls, preserving device IPs. Asimily has no switch-level enforcement of its own. Configuration Control detects drift, while native packet capture speeds investigations. Additionally, Risk Simulator models mitigation impact, and IoT Patching updates firmware and passwords on supported devices.

Recognition: 2026 Merit Awards winner, rated 4.9/5 on Gartner Peer Insights (55 reviews, Oct 2026).*

*Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Best fit for: Agencies needing a unified, normalized asset inventory across every facility, exploitability-based priorities, and segmentation validated before enforcement.

What to evaluate: Discovery of cameras, building controllers, and badge readers at one of your facilities, the documented reason behind each prioritized device, and Policy Simulation against your own traffic.

2. Forescout

Forescout discovers and classifies devices across IT, OT, and IoT and pairs that visibility with policy enforcement and automated response, building on its network access control heritage. Its platform was renamed Forescout Vistaro in June 2026 (Forescout). Forescout describes itself as CISA’s baseline tool for CDM hardware asset management (Forescout) and announced FedRAMP High authorization for its Vistaro cloud services in March 2026 (Forescout).

Best fit for: agencies that want device visibility and access control from one vendor, independent of their switch vendor’s platform.

What to evaluate: how the platform previews the impact of an enforcement action on an agency network before it is applied.

3. Armis

Armis Centrix is an agentless asset intelligence and exposure management platform spanning IT, OT, IoT, and cloud. ServiceNow completed its acquisition of Armis in April 2026 (Verdict), and Armis Centrix remains available as a standalone product.

Asset records and remediation workflows can connect to the ServiceNow CMDB.

Best fit for: agencies that run IT and security workflows in ServiceNow and want device risk inside those workflows.

What to evaluate: OT protocol depth in agency facilities, and whether segmentation policy can be created, simulated, and maintained from the same platform.

4. Ordr

Ordr’s AI Protect platform profiles devices by function, behavior, and communication patterns across converged IT and OT networks, and generates least-privilege policy that an analyst approves before it is applied through existing firewalls, NACs, switches, and wireless controllers.

Best fit for: agencies with converged IT and OT networks that want AI-assisted policy creation and use microsegmentation only to protect devices that can’t run agents.

What to evaluate: how vulnerabilities are prioritized by exploitability on your devices, and which mitigation options exist beyond segmentation.

5. Claroty

Claroty focuses on cyber-physical systems across industrial, healthcare, and commercial environments. Its platform covers asset management, exposure management, network protection, secure remote access, and threat detection, and the company reports deployments at more than 8,000 sites across 40 industries. Claroty Public Sector offers xDome for Government.

Best fit for: large agencies with industrial and facility systems that want a single cyber-physical security vendor, including secure remote access for third-party technicians.

What to evaluate: how deep discovery reaches into building and facility devices on your networks, and how network protection recommendations become enforced policy on your existing NAC and firewalls.

6. Axonius

Axonius Asset Cloud aggregates asset data from existing IT, security, cloud, and SaaS tools through more than 1,400 adapters, correlating devices, software, identities, and exposures into one inventory. Axonius announced the acquisition of medical device security specialist Cynerio in July 2025 (SiliconANGLE), and introduced Cyber-Physical Assets for OT and IoT devices in April 2026 (SiliconANGLE).

Best fit for: IT-led teams whose first gap is reconciling asset data already held in IT, cloud, and SaaS tools.

What to evaluate: how well it classifies unmanaged IoT and OT devices that no existing tool reports, and what it does beyond opening tickets once a risk is found.

7. Tenable

Tenable OT Security combines passive monitoring with active querying of industrial devices such as PLCs, and feeds OT findings into Tenable One alongside IT vulnerability management.

Best fit for: teams that want OT vulnerability management in the same tool they use for IT.

What to evaluate: how findings are prioritized by exploitability on your devices, and how they become enforced controls rather than tickets.

8. Microsoft Defender for IoT

Microsoft Defender for IoT uses agentless network sensors to monitor OT and IoT devices, so nothing is installed on the devices themselves (Microsoft Learn). It suits agencies that have already invested heavily in Microsoft security tools and want device monitoring alongside them.

Best fit for: agencies with large existing investments in Microsoft security tools.

What to evaluate: how findings are prioritized by exploitability on your devices, and how segmentation policy is created and tested for the devices it monitors.

9. Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks extends its next-generation firewalls, segmentation, and Cortex XDR into OT environments to limit lateral movement between enterprise and operational networks, and documents device policy recommendations through its IoT Security service (Palo Alto Networks).

Best fit for: agencies extending an existing Palo Alto deployment from the data center to facilities.

What to evaluate: visibility into unmanaged building and facility devices, and how segmentation rules are validated against operational traffic before rollout.

Other Companies Government Agencies Consider

Cisco, CrowdStrike, Nozomi Networks, Dragos, Fortinet, TXOne Networks, and Darktrace also appear in government evaluations. Cisco is widespread for switch infrastructure across all industries. CrowdStrike markets Falcon for XIoT to the public sector on FedRAMP High-authorized architecture (CrowdStrike), and Nozomi Networks reports more federal agency customers than any other OT security vendor (Nozomi Networks). Nozomi Networks, Dragos, and TXOne Networks are often seen as OT specialists, and Fortinet and Darktrace as extensions of an existing network or IT security investment. Agencies that need staff augmentation more than a platform often pair one of the companies above with a managed security provider that has experience with federal requirements.

Choosing the Right Fit for Your Agency

• Visibility & Cost Efficiency: Teams that can’t produce a complete device inventory should test discovery first, in their own offices and facilities, and verify per-facility sensor pricing.
• Policy Simulation & Enforcement: Teams needing enforcement should evaluate whether the platform can simulate and maintain policy across existing firewalls and NACs without requiring new access control hardware.
• Reporting & Audit Proof: Teams answering to BOD 23-01 or CMMC should verify how quickly and accurately the platform produces normalized inventory and enforcement evidence.
• Stakeholder Pilot Validation: Always run pilots using live operational traffic and involve the system owners who will approve any change.

[Related: OT Security: A Complete Guide to Protecting Operational Technology]

[Related: The Best Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Companies in 2026]

[Related: The Best SLED Cybersecurity Companies in 2026]

Frequently Asked Questions About Government Cybersecurity Companies

What Is the Best Cybersecurity Company for Government Agencies?

The best fit depends on how mature the agency’s device security program is. For basic device discovery, standard tools suffice. However, if your agency requires precision risk scoring tied to actual exploitability alongside segmentation simulated against real network traffic, Asimily delivers all three within a single, normalized framework. While options like Forescout, Armis, Ordr, and Claroty excel in core visibility and Palo Alto Networks extends enterprise firewalls across multi-site facilities, Asimily works across IoT, OT, and IT environments using AI-driven ingestion, deep packet inspection, and an extensive repository of device intelligence.

What Does CISA BOD 23-01 Require for Asset Discovery?

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 23-01 on October 3, 2022. It calls on federal civilian executive branch agencies to run automated asset discovery every 7 days and enumerate vulnerabilities on discovered assets every 14 days, reported through the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program. Devices that never reach a scanner can stay invisible to both cycles, and it takes vigilance to keep each cycle complete as devices are added and networks change. Asimily builds its inventory agentlessly and pairs findings with ATT&CK Analysis.

What Does CISA BOD 26-02 Require for Edge Devices?

CISA’s Binding Operational Directive 26-02, issued in February 2026, requires federal civilian agencies to inventory and remove unsupported internet-facing devices, including IoT devices (ExecutiveGov). It adds a lifecycle question to BOD 23-01’s discovery cycle: agencies must know not just which devices exist but which are still supported.

Are Federal Agencies Meeting IoT and OT Inventory Requirements?

Not yet, in most cases. In a September 30, 2026 report, GAO found that 15 of 22 civilian CFO Act agencies had established inventories of networked IoT and OT devices, and seven met all OMB requirements (MeriTalk). Agencies cited technical and resource constraints and competing priorities, and GAO recommended that OMB issue updated device guidance.

How Does OMB M-22-09 Apply Zero Trust to Connected Devices?

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memorandum M-22-09, dated January 26, 2022, directs federal agencies to keep complete device inventories through Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM). It notes that connected devices may lack compatible endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools and may need other zero trust defenses. Asimily’s Segmentation Orchestration builds policy for NACs and firewalls and tests it with Policy Simulation first. Many agencies still schedule major network changes for planned maintenance windows, and a long enough simulation can give system owners the confidence to switch a policy to enforcement sooner, reducing risk exposure windows.

How Does CMMC Affect the Connected Devices of Defense Contractors?

The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) applies to defense contractors that handle federal contract information or controlled unclassified information, with Level 2 aligned to NIST SP 800-171. The Department of Defense (DoD) Level 2 scoping guide treats IoT, industrial IoT, and OT assets as Specialized Assets that receive limited checks against the contractor’s risk-based policies, so contractors still need to document them. Requirements vary by contract.

Does FedRAMP Authorization Matter for Device Security Platforms?

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) matters when an agency buys a cloud-delivered platform, because agencies generally require cloud services to carry authorization at the level their data needs. Check each vendor in the FedRAMP Marketplace, because status changes. Asimily is not FedRAMP authorized; federal agencies deploy it on premises, where FedRAMP cloud authorization does not apply. Agencies with cloud requirements should confirm current status with every vendor.

See How Asimily Protects Government Agencies

Asimily gives agencies one unified, normalized asset inventory across IoT, OT, and IT, a short list of the exposures that are actually exploitable, and segmentation policy simulated against real traffic before it is enforced.

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