Evoke Security Named Finalist in Black Hat SecTor 2026 Startup Spotlight Competition

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2026/PRNewswire/ -- Evoke Security, the security platform for the agentic workforce, announced today that it has been selected as a finalist in the Black Hat SecTor 2026 Startup Spotlight Competition, which showcases emerging cybersecurity companies addressing real-world security challenges. Evoke Security is building a new approach to detecting and responding to agent misuse and rogue agent behavior, giving security teams the context to understand what AI agents are doing and the controls to intervene when their actions cross a boundary.

Evoke Security is one of four startups selected to compete live at SecTor 2026 in Toronto. Finalists will present their technology to a live audience and panel of cybersecurity and investment leaders on October 7 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

At SecTor, Evoke Security will showcase its approach to detecting and stopping dangerous agent behavior. Traditional security controls were not designed to understand whether an agent is acting appropriately based on its goal, behavior, intent, and potential impact. Evoke Security monitors agent behavior across its full trajectory, evaluating four dimensions called Mission, Method, Motive, and Magnitude to determine when an agent is drifting toward dangerous behavior. That context enables security teams to allow safe activity, guide an agent toward a safer path, or block unauthorized activity before it becomes a security incident. The approach builds on Evoke Security's broader platform for securing AI agents across distributed environments. Evoke Security provides security teams with a live inventory of agents and their connected resources, surfaces risky configurations, and monitors agent activity across actions and sessions. Rather than treating every unusual action as equally risky, Evoke Security gives defenders the context to understand where an agent has been, what it is doing now, and where its behavior is headed.

"AI agents are becoming the next operating system for employees, but the security tools we rely on today weren't built to understand when an agent starts to misuse its access or go rogue," said Jason Rebholz, CEO and co-founder of Evoke Security. "Evoke is giving defenders the visibility and context to understand what agents are doing in their environment. Evoke's detection engine is built to spot agent misuse and rogue agents, guiding them to a better path or outright block unauthorized activity before it turns into a security incident. We're excited to showcase our approach in Toronto."

Evoke recently detailed its detection philosophy in Rogue Agents, A Practical Framework for Knowing When Your Agent Has Gone Off the Rails, which explains why detecting agent risk requires looking beyond an individual action to understand an agent's broader trajectory.

The Startup Spotlight Competition gives emerging cybersecurity companies five minutes to demonstrate their technology and explain how it solves real-world challenges for security teams, followed by five minutes of questions from the judging panel. The winner will be selected on October 7 and will receive a turnkey Startup City booth at Black Hat USA 2027 and the opportunity to compete in the Global Startup Spotlight Competition at Black Hat USA 2027.

Evoke Security's selection follows its participation in Google's inaugural Gemini Startup Forum for Cybersecurity and the 2026 CrowdStrike, AWS, and NVIDIA Cybersecurity Startup Accelerator.

For more information about the SecTor 2026 Startup Spotlight Competition, visit the Black Hat SecTor website.

About Evoke Security
Evoke Security is a leading AI detection and response platform purpose-built to secure AI agents. Founded by incident response veterans, Evoke Security's Agentic AI-powered platform enables security teams to continuously inventory, threat model, and monitor AI agents. Evoke Security treats agents as the next operating system for businesses, surfacing risky configurations and analyzing real-time behavior and actions to enforce strict controls, ensuring businesses can innovate without compounding security debt.

SOURCE Evoke Security