ZeroTier named cybersecurity solution of the Year 2026 - A second time!

RouterOS General
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I hope these awards will motivate MikroTik to treat ZeroTier as a first-class citizen in their ecosystem, please read on:

ZeroTier has just been named "Cybersecurity Solution of the Year 2026" by The Cyber Security Review (April 14, 2026) – their second major award this year. Here's the official announcement:

ZeroTier Named 'Cybersecurity Solution of the Year 2026' by The Cyber Security Review

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, APRIL 14, 2026 — ZeroTier, one of the world's top software-defined networking companies, announced today it has been named "Cybersecurity Solution of the Year 2026" by The Cyber Security Review magazine. The award recognizes ZeroTier's leadership in delivering a secure, software-defined networking platform that meets the demands of modern enterprises. As organizations continue to scale across cloud, edge, and hybrid environments, including an explosion of AI agents, ZeroTier provides a simple, identity-based way to connect users, workloads, and devices, without the complexity of legacy networking.

ZeroTier replaces rigid infrastructure with direct, encrypted connectivity. It enables enterprises to build flat networks across clouds, data centers, and edge environments with defense-grade security. Its peer-to-peer architecture and end-to-end encryption aligns to any network topology to create resilient connectivity from enterprise IT to regulated industries to defense and mission-critical systems.

"Networking is still too complex, too exposed, and too expensive," said Andrew Gault, CEO of ZeroTier. "We're changing that. This recognition reinforces our mission to give organizations a simpler, more secure way to connect everything."

In a special award feature, The Cyber Security Review highlighted ZeroTier's forward-looking, innovative approach to connectivity and security, especially as enterprises prepare for AI-driven traffic growth, distributed systems, and emerging quantum threats.

To combat these threats, ZeroTier recently rolled out ZeroTier Quantum, the first software-defined, end-to-end quantum-secure networking platform in the world. Designed for on-wire, data center level performance, ZeroTier's quantum cryptographic construction meets NIST and NSA's highest standards at CNSA 2.0 — exceeding PQC hurdles targeted by governments and regulated industries from 2026 onward.

"With AI changing the landscape of cyberattacks and the quantum threat just around the corner, ZeroTier is leading the way with resilient, decentralized, identity-first networking that limits access by design," Gault said. "This recognition by The Cyber Security Review is a testament to the hard work and relentless innovation of our team, who are committed to solving difficult connectivity challenges while securing organizations globally."

Official References:

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A pPromotional article in a business magazine published after Zerotier paid money to the publisher.
Appears in the “News” section.

In the past this was called Advertisement.

Fake news is a better word.

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Seriously though, are you suggesting ZeroTier somehow fabricated or bought their way into both of these awards?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

And I don’t think you have the slightest idea what technical solutions they’re actually talking about.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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The article appears in the Business Wire, a wholly owned subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway since 2006, operates on a "pay-to-play" model for corporate information. Companies pay for the privilege to publish the news.

Zerotier was named a "Cybersecurity Solution of the Year 2026" by the thecybersecurityreview.com which is owned by Delta Business Media, a specialized business-to-business (B2B) private commercial media outlet based in UK.

How does it make money?

Delta Business Media operates on a B2B media model, which differs from standard consumer blogs or news sites. Their revenue is generated through several key channels:

  • Content Marketing & Sponsored Features: A significant portion of their revenue comes from cybersecurity vendors (like Palo Alto Networks, Trend Micro, or ZeroTier) paying to have their white papers, case studies, or executive interviews featured in the publication.

  • Corporate Branding & Advertising: They sell traditional display advertising space both in their print/PDF editions and on the website.

  • Lead Generation: By hosting specialized reports or webinars, the publisher collects data from readers (who are often high-level CISOs or IT directors) and sells those "qualified leads" to cybersecurity companies.

  • Awards & Recognition: They frequently host or sponsor industry awards. Companies often pay "administrative" or "marketing package" fees associated with being shortlisted or promoted as a winner.

  • Subscription & Reprints: While much of their content is available online, they sell premium print subscriptions and "digital reprints"—official PDF copies of articles that companies use for their own marketing purposes.

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Your response is pure AI slop, and you didn’t even answer the actual question about what’s under the hood technically. That these awards, like so many others, serve a commercial purpose is hardly breaking news.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ In that sense, even Gartner's Magic Quadrant is essentially bought.

One might almost get the impression you don't like ZeroTier :wink:

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One would be foolish not to use AI today. Companies have to pay money to promote themselves. The information is easily verifiable, and that is all that matters.

You are right, I didn't respond to how Zerotier works. I understand it in general, however since it is proprietary technology my interest stops at it being a Layer 2 frames traversing the internet. A cloud based controller facilitates peers in the initial phase establishing communication with each other. The whole network is p2p architecture. As I said my interest stops at this point because the technology is proprietary.

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Hope you got $ to advertise that crap marketing fluff piece from a trade magazine, in here, for free. These are driven entirely by PR budgets and marketing teams trying to sell government compliance, not by rigorous, code-level security testing.

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Yes, I'm promoting ZeroTier, and here's why: I want ZeroTier to be fully supported on ROS. Am I making money from promoting ZeroTier here? No. But I do make money from being able to offer cost-effective solutions where they fit best. ZeroTier's ReBAC provides a hierarchical security model with very granular control at a fraction of the cost of comparable solutions from Cisco, Fortinet and Palo Alto, and combined with ROS that would make for a very attractive proposition. That’s why.

Both the protocol and the client are open source ( GitHub - zerotier/ZeroTierOne: A Smart Ethernet Switch for Earth · GitHub ). What's closed source is ZeroTier Central ie the service layer handling the hierarchical administration using the ReBAC policy engine, and ZeroTier Quantum with its quantum-safe end-to-end encryption.

If you're a hobbyist working with small-scale setups I get that it can be hard to see the bigger picture, much like when hobbyists dismiss IPSec in favor of WireGuard without understanding the enterprise context. When that's the case, I suppose "marketing fluff" is the only card left to play. :wink:

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Nice attempt at the 'enterprise vs. hobbyist' pivot, but I didn't play any other card. The only issue here is you copy-pasting clickbait PR articles stuffed with 2026 buzzwords. We are on a technical forum; keep the marketing fluff out of it.

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Ha, it got your attention though, didn't it! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

But so far all I'm seeing from your side is complaints about how it was presented, with zero engagement on the actual technical merits. If you have a genuine technical objection, I'm all ears.

Ps.. And strictly speaking it wasn't a "PR article" but a press release in the mail, but hey, same thing different label.

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Hard to engage on the 'actual technical merits' of the Quantum tier when you already admitted the code is closed-source. The #1 rule of cryptography is 'don't trust unverified math.' Until a respected third party audits this new proprietary protocol, there are no technical merits to discuss—only vendor promises. And yes, acting as a free copy-paste bot for a vendor's paid press release is exactly what I was calling out.
Cheers.

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What I know at this point is that ZeroTier Quantum uses Kyber1024 (ML-KEM) which is a NIST-approved post-quantum algorithm, so the underlying cryptography is solid and well-vetted, although ZeroTier has not yet disclosed which NIST-accredited third-party lab will validate the implementation, nor when that audit is expected to be completed.

EDIT:
Just a sidenote that ML-KEM secures the key exchange, which is the only real quantum vulnerability. Once the session key is established, AES-256 handles the data stream and is already considered quantum-resistant since Grover's algorithm at worst makes AES-256 equivalent to AES-128 in terms of security, which is still practically unbreakable.

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Oh goody, my two favourite posters, both who have lost the bubble.
First of all, what is needed more than zerotier is ZeroTrust by cloudflare ( odd name zerotrust though isnt it), so that all the home users that host their own servers can do so, without exposing their servers directly to the internet. Now that would be useful and should be a package available NOT some container app YAML crap.

As for zerotier, BULLOCKS, flush it down the looo……
Wireguard would be my first suggestion but it doesnt quite cover the need.
I am recommending a full blown effort to add Tailscale as a package, giving a better admin experience for managing wireguard type tunnels.

Anyone, just came to rain on your parade. :slight_smile:

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Hahaha, nice try Anav, not falling for that one! :smiley:

Tailscale is just WireGuard with a pretty bow on top and a cloud dependency baked in (tho honestly Tailscale is actually pretty great too!) But sure, for home users hosting their own servers, Cloudflare Tunnel is actually a solid point. I'll give you that one.

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Not sure what you mean by cloud dependency? Run your own servers using Headscale and its fully compatible with tailscale clients, aka no third party.

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With standard Tailscale you're tied to their cloud with relay and admin console, no way around it. ZeroTier has the same setup by default, but with the key difference that you can replace the entire control plane with your own autonomous environment. Unfortunately not (yet?) possible on ROS since those settings aren't exposed.

Headscale is now essentially its own branch and no longer fully compatible with Tailscale clients. Still a great option for a 100% self-hosted setup, and there are third-party web admin consoles available, though they don't quite cover everything Tailscale's own console offers. The core functionality is there though.

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Can you provide evidence that tailscale clients are NOT compatible with headscale???

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I wrote "no longer fully compatible with Tailscale," which means that the basic core network with WireGuard still works but Headscale lacks feature parity functionality like context-aware enforcement needed for full ZTNA, built-in support for Tailscale Lock (E2EE trust), distributed DERP relay infrastructure, and user management with SCIM.

That last part is basically a non-issue for a home lab with a few static users. Also worth mentioning: no Mullvad VPN exit nodes, no Tailscale SSH keyless auth, and no Serve, Funnel, Taildrop, MagicDNS (partially) or App Connectors.

There are probably other things I've forgotten, but I'm pretty sure you can Google the details yourself.

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Mixed bag of results:
Feature Parity: Headscale supports most core features like MagicDNS and ACLs, but it lacks some advanced commercial features like Tailscale Funnel, Serve, or dynamic ACLs.

After more reading, headscale is really not designed at all for enterprise and many nodes. Well tailscail still seems like something useful to provide via RoS, but I guess will never likely happen and headscale seems limited (not as user friendly).

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VTI? Wrong thread? :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: