Award highlights patented Guardian Instant Standby Forest technology and growing need for identity-first recovery across Active Directory, Entra ID, and modern AI‑driven environments
Columbus, Ohio – June 23, 2026 – Cayosoft, the undisputed leader in Microsoft hybrid Active Directory (AD), Entra ID, and Microsoft 365 enterprise management, monitoring, and recovery, today announced its Guardian Instant Forest Recovery solution has been named a winner in the 2026 Cybersecurity Stars Awards, recognized as the Most Innovative Ransomware Recovery Platform. Hosted by The Hacker News, the Stars Awards recognize companies delivering meaningful innovation and measurable impact in modern cybersecurity.
The recognition reflects a critical shift across the industry: ransomware recovery isn’t a data problem, it’s an identity problem. When attackers compromise identity systems like Active Directory and Entra ID, they don’t just encrypt files, they control authentication, escalate privileges, and can prevent recovery altogether. Yet many organizations still rely on backup and rebuild approaches that are too slow, too fragile, and often unsafe for modern attacks.
“In ransomware events, identity is the control plane and if you can’t trust identity, you can’t recover,” said Robert Bobel, Founder and CEO at Cayosoft. “This award reinforces what security teams are learning the hard way: recovery has to start with identity, and it has to be immediate.”
Cayosoft Guardian Instant Forest Recovery was built specifically for this reality, enabling organizations to detect and roll back malicious or accidental identity changes, restore trusted identity states, and eliminate attacker persistence across any scenario from individual objects to full forest failure. At its core, Cayosoft’s patented Instant Standby Forest technology maintains a continuously validated, isolated Active Directory environment ready for immediate use, allowing organizations to instantly cut over to a clean identity environment during an active ransomware attack or after production systems have been destroyed or locked.
“We congratulate Cayosoft on winning the Ransomware Recovery award in the 2026 Cybersecurity Stars Awards,” said Jon Anthony, Marketing and Sales Manager at The Hacker News. “Cayosoft Guardian Instant Forest Recovery helps organizations restore their identity systems quickly after ransomware attacks, using a patented standby approach that keeps a validated copy of Active Directory ready for immediate use. Their focus on identity recovery as a core part of ransomware response is important work that strengthens how organizations can bounce back from real attacks.”
The award comes as identity has become the primary attack surface in ransomware incidents. Threat actors increasingly target Active Directory to escalate privileges and maintain control, manipulate identity systems to delay or prevent recovery, and exploit non-human and automated identities at scale. At the same time, enterprises are managing more complex hybrid environments across on-prem Active Directory, Entra ID, and a growing number of non-human and AI‑driven identities.
To address these challenges, Cayosoft expanded Guardian Instant Forest Recovery in 2026 with new capabilities to monitor and roll back changes from automated and AI-driven identities, detect privilege escalation and policy drift, and recover safely even when changes originate from compromised systems. Independent technical validation shows the solution delivers up to 99 percent faster recovery than traditional backup-based Active Directory approaches by maintaining a clean, continuously validated standby environment that reduces downtime and eliminates the risk of reinfection.
This recognition reinforces Cayosoft’s leadership in identity-focused ransomware recovery, bringing together granular recovery, full Active Directory disaster recovery, Entra ID restoration, and integrated threat detection in a single platform designed to help organizations quickly regain control after an attack.
Learn more about Cayosoft Guardian Instant Forest Recovery
Learn more about the 2026 Cybersecurity Star Awards Most Innovative Ransomware Recovery Platform
About Cayosoft
Cayosoft delivers the only unified solution enabling organizations to securely manage, continuously monitor for threats or suspect changes, and instantly recover their Microsoft platforms, including on-premises Active Directory, Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), Microsoft 365, Intune, and more.
Unlike legacy solutions, Cayosoft builds with hybrid, cloud, and mobile users in mind, fully supporting an organization throughout its IT cloud journey. Manage by offering roles, rules, and automations for Active Directory user governance. Monitor for critical changes, risks, vulnerabilities, and threats that could compromise operations. Recover from simple objects up to multiple forests. Cayosoft is the only vendor offering instant AD forest recovery, in contrast to the hours, days, and weeks traditional solutions require. Satisfaction with Cayosoft is exceptionally high, with an average customer retention rate of 99% over the past three years.
To learn more, visit cayosoft.com and follow @cayosoft on LinkedIn, X/Twitter, and Facebook.
Media Contact:
Michelle Schafer
Merritt Group for Cayosoft
cayosoft@merrittgrp.com