Shadowbear has been ranked No. 35 on the Washington Business Journal’s 2026 list of the Largest Cybersecurity Companies in Greater Washington, published in the Journal’s August 28 issue. It is our first appearance on the list.
The ranking is compiled each year by the Journal’s research team using information supplied by the companies themselves, and it covers cybersecurity firms across the Washington metropolitan area, one of the deepest cybersecurity markets in the country. Shadowbear was founded in 2023 and is based in Ashburn, in Loudoun County.
The full announcement went out on the wire this morning: Shadowbear Ranks No. 35 Among Greater Washington’s Largest Cybersecurity Companies.
What a list like this actually maps
Most of the companies on the Greater Washington list sell to federal agencies and large enterprises. That is the shape of the security market in this region: agencies, primes, and the integrators built around them.
Read as a map, though, the list also shows the gap. The businesses that surround those institutions, hold their data, and sit inside their supply chains carry many of the same obligations with none of the same staffing. Our position on the list reflects that second group, which is the reason the company exists in the first place.
Most of the companies we protect have no security staff and the same adversaries as a Fortune 500 firm. Being ranked alongside the region’s largest cybersecurity companies three years after we started says something about the demand for protection a small business can actually run on. Our job is for the owner to sleep at night.
Ian Garrett, founder of Shadowbear
Why the standards keep arriving earlier
Three things now reach a company long before it is large enough to hire a security team.
- Cyber insurance renewals. Applications now ask for controls that used to be enterprise requirements: multifactor authentication on every account, immutable backups, endpoint detection and response on every device, and a tested incident response plan. We covered those questions in detail in how to answer cyber insurance renewal questions without voiding your policy.
- Customer security questionnaires. Buyers send them before they sign. For a lot of small firms, the questionnaire shows up well before a security hire is anywhere in the budget.
- Flow-down compliance. Defense subcontractors have to self-assess against NIST SP 800-171 and meet CMMC obligations no matter their size. The requirement moves down the supply chain, and it does not scale with headcount.
None of it waits for a company to be ready. For an owner in that position, the question stopped being whether to take security seriously and became how to do it without hiring a team.
What that looks like in practice
Our Cyber Defense Suite puts 24/7 managed detection and response, security monitoring, endpoint protection, employee phishing training, vulnerability scanning, and patching into a single per-user subscription, with tiers that add extended log retention, dark web monitoring, and zero trust network access. We work mainly with businesses of 10 to 100 employees that handle sensitive information: defense subcontractors under NIST SP 800-171 and CMMC, accounting and financial services firms, and other regulated small businesses in Northern Virginia and beyond.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Washington Business Journal’s Largest Cybersecurity Companies list?
It is an annual ranking compiled by the Journal’s research team covering cybersecurity firms across the Washington metropolitan area, using information the companies supply. The 2026 edition ran in the August 28 issue.
Where can I read the full announcement?
The press release is published on EIN Presswire.
Does Shadowbear only work with companies in Northern Virginia?
Northern Virginia is home and where most of our clients are, but we support businesses outside the region as well. The Cyber Defense Suite is delivered remotely.
What is the free Cyber Defense checkup?
A 15-minute review of the security you already pay for. It flags overlapping or unused tools and identifies the gaps an insurer, auditor, or customer questionnaire would surface. There is no cost and no obligation.
Sources and further reading
- Shadowbear Ranks No. 35 Among Greater Washington’s Largest Cybersecurity Companies, the full press release on EIN Presswire.
- Washington Business Journal, publisher of the annual Largest Cybersecurity Companies in Greater Washington list.
Thank you to the clients who trusted a young company with something this unglamorous and this important. If you want a second opinion on where your own security stands, book a free 15-minute Cyber Defense checkup and we will walk through it with you.