Frost Radar Names Cloud-Native Leaders in 2026 Email Security Shift
New Frost Radar report benchmarks email security leaders amid industry shift from gateways to cloud-native, API-based platforms as AI-driven BEC attacks surge.
Frost Radar Names Cloud-Native Leaders in 2026 Email Security Shift
New Frost Radar report benchmarks email security leaders amid industry shift from gateways to cloud-native, API-based platforms as AI-driven BEC attacks surge.
Research and Markets has added the Frost Radar: Email Security, 2026 report to its catalog, benchmarking the leading providers in the email security market across innovation strategies, growth performance, and capacity to meet shifting customer demands. The report maps the competitive landscape and identifies the vendors best positioned to deliver value in an environment shaped by platform consolidation, generative AI-enabled threats, and demand for integrated, outcome-focused security solutions.
According to Frost & Sullivan, email security has become a pillar of enterprise cyber resilience as threat actors increasingly exploit the human layer through phishing, business email compromise, impersonation, and multichannel social engineering. At the same time, the market is moving beyond traditional secure email gateways toward cloud-native, API-based, and AI-driven platforms that integrate email protection with collaboration security, identity, data protection, and human risk management.
Why the SEG Era Is Ending
For years, the secure email gateway (SEG) was the default perimeter defense: block bad attachments, filter spam, quarantine known threats. That architecture is now losing ground.
As Barracuda Networks notes, the most damaging attacks today look like routine business messages. Payment updates, vendor changes, and meeting requests are copied with enough accuracy to trigger financial actions or expose active sessions. Malware is often absent entirely. Instead, attackers exploit trust and context, using details from compromised inboxes and SaaS tools, mimicking writing styles, and pushing victims to mobile devices via QR codes to bypass controls.
Research and Markets has added the Frost Radar: Email Security, 2026 report to its catalog, benchmarking the leading providers in the email security market across innovation strategies, growth performance, and capacity to meet shifting customer demands. The report maps the competitive landscape and identifies the vendors best positioned to deliver value in an environment shaped by platform consolidation, generative AI-enabled threats, and demand for integrated, outcome-focused security solutions.
According to Frost & Sullivan, email security has become a pillar of enterprise cyber resilience as threat actors increasingly exploit the human layer through phishing, business email compromise, impersonation, and multichannel social engineering. At the same time, the market is moving beyond traditional secure email gateways toward cloud-native, API-based, and AI-driven platforms that integrate email protection with collaboration security, identity, data protection, and human risk management.
Why the SEG Era Is Ending
For years, the secure email gateway (SEG) was the default perimeter defense: block bad attachments, filter spam, quarantine known threats. That architecture is now losing ground.
As Barracuda Networks notes, the most damaging attacks today look like routine business messages. Payment updates, vendor changes, and meeting requests are copied with enough accuracy to trigger financial actions or expose active sessions. Malware is often absent entirely. Instead, attackers exploit trust and context, using details from compromised inboxes and SaaS tools, mimicking writing styles, and pushing victims to mobile devices via QR codes to bypass controls.
According to Mordor Intelligence, Secure Email Gateways held 36.95% of the email security market in 2025, but Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES) platforms are expanding at a 21.25% CAGR, rapidly outpacing their legacy counterparts.
According to Mordor Intelligence, Secure Email Gateways held 36.95% of the email security market in 2025, but Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES) platforms are expanding at a 21.25% CAGR, rapidly outpacing their legacy counterparts.
The numbers behind the threat are equally striking. According to Hoxhunt, business email compromise attacks accounted for 73% of all reported cyber incidents in 2024. Generative AI is making BEC lures more convincing and easier to produce at scale, with an estimated 40% of BEC phishing emails being AI-generated by mid-2024. The 2025 Association for Financial Professionals Payments Fraud and Control Survey found that 63% of treasury practitioners cited BEC as the number one avenue for payment fraud attempts.
The numbers behind the threat are equally striking. According to Hoxhunt, business email compromise attacks accounted for 73% of all reported cyber incidents in 2024. Generative AI is making BEC lures more convincing and easier to produce at scale, with an estimated 40% of BEC phishing emails being AI-generated by mid-2024. The 2025 Association for Financial Professionals Payments Fraud and Control Survey found that 63% of treasury practitioners cited BEC as the number one avenue for payment fraud attempts.
How the Frost Radar Benchmarks Leaders
As noted on Research and Markets, Frost & Sullivan analyzes numerous companies in an industry, then selects those demonstrating leadership or notable distinctions and benchmarks them across 10 Growth and Innovation criteria. The result is a competitive profile for each company, mapping their strengths against the opportunities that best fit those strengths.
The 2026 edition highlights the vendors best positioned to deliver value in a market shaped by platform consolidation, generative AI-enabled threats, and demand for integrated, outcome-focused security solutions, as detailed by Frost & Sullivan. Vendors are evaluated across dimensions including R&D investment, product portfolio contribution to revenue, customer alignment, and megatrend leverage, giving buyers a structured way to compare providers rather than relying on feature checklists alone.
Among the vendors recognized, LibraCyber differentiates itself through a privacy-first, layered architecture combining semantic analysis, behavioral modeling, and SEG controls in a unified platform, deliberately prioritizing local processing, data sovereignty, and explainable AI for organizations operating under strict regulatory constraints.
The Market Opportunity Behind the Shift
How the Frost Radar Benchmarks Leaders
As noted on Research and Markets, Frost & Sullivan analyzes numerous companies in an industry, then selects those demonstrating leadership or notable distinctions and benchmarks them across 10 Growth and Innovation criteria. The result is a competitive profile for each company, mapping their strengths against the opportunities that best fit those strengths.
The 2026 edition highlights the vendors best positioned to deliver value in a market shaped by platform consolidation, generative AI-enabled threats, and demand for integrated, outcome-focused security solutions, as detailed by Frost & Sullivan. Vendors are evaluated across dimensions including R&D investment, product portfolio contribution to revenue, customer alignment, and megatrend leverage, giving buyers a structured way to compare providers rather than relying on feature checklists alone.
Among the vendors recognized, LibraCyber differentiates itself through a privacy-first, layered architecture combining semantic analysis, behavioral modeling, and SEG controls in a unified platform, deliberately prioritizing local processing, data sovereignty, and explainable AI for organizations operating under strict regulatory constraints.
The Market Opportunity Behind the Shift
The financial backdrop for this architectural transition is substantial. The email security market is estimated at $5.89 billion in 2026, up from $5.23 billion in 2025, with projections reaching $10.64 billion by 2031 at a 12.57% CAGR. According to MarkNtel Advisors, the global email security market is projected to grow at a CAGR of around 12.23% during 2026 to 2032, driven by the rising frequency of phishing, ransomware, and BEC attacks, alongside growing cloud platform adoption and AI-powered threat detection integration.
The financial backdrop for this architectural transition is substantial. The email security market is estimated at $5.89 billion in 2026, up from $5.23 billion in 2025, with projections reaching $10.64 billion by 2031 at a 12.57% CAGR. According to MarkNtel Advisors, the global email security market is projected to grow at a CAGR of around 12.23% during 2026 to 2032, driven by the rising frequency of phishing, ransomware, and BEC attacks, alongside growing cloud platform adoption and AI-powered threat detection integration.
The cloud segment is already dominant. According to Fortune Business Insights, cloud-based email security is projected to hold 55.84% of the total deployment market in 2026. Separately, Abnormal Security reported in January 2025 that attacks using compromised file-sharing tools to evade authentication surged 350% year-over-year in 2024, adding further urgency to the API-native defense approach.
The cloud segment is already dominant. According to Fortune Business Insights, cloud-based email security is projected to hold 55.84% of the total deployment market in 2026. Separately, Abnormal Security reported in January 2025 that attacks using compromised file-sharing tools to evade authentication surged 350% year-over-year in 2024, adding further urgency to the API-native defense approach.
What This Means for Email Marketers and Growth Teams
The findings carry real, practical weight for business owners and marketing teams. When your domain reputation is compromised through a spoofing attack or a BEC campaign that impersonates your brand, the fallout lands directly on your deliverability and sender score. Legitimate campaigns then pay the price.
Research cited by Reanin shows the shift from traditional SEGs to integrated cloud email security platforms can reduce mean-time-to-detect by as much as 40%, a meaningful operational advantage for teams managing high-volume outbound programs.
The industry is also moving from generic awareness training toward Human Risk Management (HRM): a strategy that quantifies behavioral vulnerabilities rather than relying on broad education. Organizations are adopting adaptive platforms that identify high-risk individuals who disproportionately increase the attack surface, enabling targeted interventions for specific workforce segments, as reported by Globe Newswire.
For teams that rely on email as a primary revenue channel, the practical takeaways are clear: verify that your domain has DMARC enforcement in place, audit vendors who send on your behalf, and take a close look at whether your current email security stack can detect context-based attacks that carry no malicious links or attachments. According to StrongestLayer, malicious emails bypassing email gateways increased 105%, phishing emails are up 1,265% since the launch of ChatGPT, and 68% of all phishing emails are now text-based BEC attacks. Legacy filters were not built for that reality.
What This Means for Email Marketers and Growth Teams
The findings carry real, practical weight for business owners and marketing teams. When your domain reputation is compromised through a spoofing attack or a BEC campaign that impersonates your brand, the fallout lands directly on your deliverability and sender score. Legitimate campaigns then pay the price.
Research cited by Reanin shows the shift from traditional SEGs to integrated cloud email security platforms can reduce mean-time-to-detect by as much as 40%, a meaningful operational advantage for teams managing high-volume outbound programs.
The industry is also moving from generic awareness training toward Human Risk Management (HRM): a strategy that quantifies behavioral vulnerabilities rather than relying on broad education. Organizations are adopting adaptive platforms that identify high-risk individuals who disproportionately increase the attack surface, enabling targeted interventions for specific workforce segments, as reported by Globe Newswire.
For teams that rely on email as a primary revenue channel, the practical takeaways are clear: verify that your domain has DMARC enforcement in place, audit vendors who send on your behalf, and take a close look at whether your current email security stack can detect context-based attacks that carry no malicious links or attachments. According to StrongestLayer, malicious emails bypassing email gateways increased 105%, phishing emails are up 1,265% since the launch of ChatGPT, and 68% of all phishing emails are now text-based BEC attacks. Legacy filters were not built for that reality.
