LightCyber, a leading provider of Behavioural Attack Detection solutions, announced that it has been selected as a 2016 Red Herring Top 100 North America winner. The award recognises the leading private companies from the region, celebrating innovation and technology from startups across respective industries.

LightCyber’s innovative technology solves the growing data breach problem by using machine learning to find operational activities of active network attackers. The Magna platform profiles users and devices on an organisation’s network to learn good behaviour and be able to detect malicious anomalies indicative of an attack. Fast, accurate detection of an active attacker enables organisations to curtail a data breach or other dangers. At the same time, Magna can identify harmful activity from insiders—rogue or unaware employees or contractors—that is either intentionally malicious or unknowingly dangerous.

Red Herring Top 100 America enlists outstanding entrepreneurs and promising companies. It selects the award winners from approximately 1,200 privately financed companies each year in the US and Canada. Since 1996, Red Herring has kept tabs on these up-and-comers. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognise that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, Palo Alto Networks and eBay would change the way we live and work.

“In 2016, selecting the top achievers was extremely difficult,” said Alex Vieux, publisher and chief executive officer of Red Herring. “The variety, depth, disruption and traction we saw from the early stage companies to those with significant scale made it one of the toughest vintages to judge. The North America winners are representative of the amazing ecosystem that never ceases to astound, with new and experienced entrepreneurs continuing to push the barriers of innovation. As one of the winners, LightCyber should be proud of its accomplishment under such strong competition.”

Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technological innovation and intellectual property, DNA of the founders, business model, customer footprint and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track record and standing of startups relative to their sector peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models in North America.