🤖
The "AI" Is Just Regex Award
For the company that most aggressively markets basic string matching, if/else statements, or a single API call to ChatGPT as "proprietary AI/ML-powered threat intelligence."
Judging: Buzzword-to-actual-ML ratio
😱
Best Fear-Mongering Campaign
Celebrating the press release, blog post, or LinkedIn carousel that most effectively weaponized vague threat statistics to generate pipeline. Bonus points for an ominous stock photo of a hooded figure.
Judging: FUD density per paragraph
📊
Most Unverifiable Statistic
Awarded to the vendor who published the most impressive statistic that, upon closer inspection, was sourced from their own survey of 37 people or a "proprietary threat research methodology."
Judging: Confidence ÷ sample size
🏗️
Outstanding Achievement in Vaporware
For the product demo'd at RSA Conference that won't actually ship for 18 months, if ever. The roadmap slide counts as a feature, right?
Judging: Demo-to-GA time delta
🪟
The "Single Pane of Glass" Award
Recognizing the dashboard that consolidates 47 other dashboards into one gloriously confusing dashboard that nobody actually uses, requiring three more dashboards to interpret.
Judging: Panes per pane of glass
🏷️
Best Invented Product Category
Honoring the company that created an entirely new three-letter acronym to describe something that already exists, then paid an analyst firm to write the Magic Quadrant for it.
Judging: Acronym originality × analyst spend
🎪
Most Egregious RSA Booth
For the booth that spent more on the espresso bar, LED walls, and swag DJ than on the actual product. Nominees must have given away at least 2,000 branded socks.
Judging: Booth spend ÷ ARR
🔀
The Buzzword Bingo Champion
Awarded to the homepage, datasheet, or LinkedIn post that achieved the highest concentration of meaningless buzzwords per sentence. "AI-native zero-trust mesh platform" energy.
Judging: Buzzwords per capita
💀
Best Breach Response PR
Celebrating the security company that, after getting breached itself, released the most impressively euphemistic statement. "Unauthorized access event" is the gold standard.
Judging: Euphemism creativity score
🎖️
The "Award-Winning" Award
Meta-award for the company that prominently displays the most pay-to-play awards badges on their homepage. If your logo wall of "Top 10" badges takes more than 2 scrolls, you're nominated.
Judging: Badge count × entry fees paid
📈
Lifetime Achievement in "Shifting Left"
For the vendor who has shifted so far left they've somehow ended up back on the right. Includes claiming to "shift left" on things that don't have a direction.
Judging: Directional confusion index
🤝
The "Strategic Partnership" Press Release
Recognizing the most enthusiastic press release about a "partnership" that is, in reality, just a shared Slack channel and a co-branded PDF that neither company will promote.
Judging: Hype-to-integration ratio