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What is the SACR Endpoint Control and Prevention report?
The CISO Guide to Endpoint Control and Prevention (ECP) is a July 2026 research report by Software Analyst Cyber Research (SACR) that defines a new security architecture category succeeding EDR. SACR evaluated vendors across five ECP zones covering software posture, application enforcement, agent runtime visibility, behavioral analysis, and data-centric enforcement.
NeuralTrust was named a Major Player for its work in Zone 2 (Application Layer Enforcement) and Zone 3 (Agent Runtime Visibility).
TL;DR - Key Takeaways
- NeuralTrust is named a SACR 2026 Major Player in Endpoint Control and Prevention, recognized in Zone 2: Application Layer Enforcement and Zone 3: Agent Runtime Visibility.
- SACR defines ECP as the architectural successor to EDR, built to govern AI agents, browser activity, application workflows, identity context, and sensitive data.
- Lawrence Pingree, SACR Head of Research, describes NeuralTrust as extending AI security beyond the endpoint through runtime governance, prompt injection protection, and policy enforcement across AI agent interactions.
- SACR recommends CISOs evaluate NeuralTrust early in any production AI agent deployment program, noting that runtime security is significantly easier to instrument before agents go to production than after.
- NeuralTrust's four products, TrustGate, TrustGuard, TrustLens, and TrustTest, cover the full AI agent security stack from gateway enforcement to red teaming.
SACR, the independent cybersecurity research firm with 80,000-plus readers and 120,000 security professionals in its network, published its 2026 ECP report in July. NeuralTrust was named a Major Player. The recognition covers two zones: application layer enforcement (Zone 2) and agent runtime visibility (Zone 3). SACR's recommendation for CISOs: bring NeuralTrust in early on any production AI agent deployment.
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The Analyst Firm Nobody Talks About (That Security Leaders Actually Read)
Most analyst recognition looks the same. A vendor gets placed in a quadrant. A press release goes out. The report sits in a PDF nobody opens.
SACR operates differently.
Software Analyst Cyber Research is an independent firm founded by Francis Odum and led by Lawrence Pingree, formerly a decade-long researcher at Gartner with more than 300 published research notes. Their community reaches over 120,000 active security professionals. When SACR names a Major Player, it lands directly in the inboxes of the CISOs making the buying decisions.
The July 2026 SACR report, "The CISO Guide to Endpoint Control and Prevention (ECP): The Next Architecture for Endpoint and AI Security," does not just add vendors to an existing category. It defines a new one.
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Why EDR Cannot Protect AI Agents
EDR was built for a world of binary software on managed endpoints. An agent on a Windows laptop. A process spawned from a known executable. File writes tracked by a kernel driver.
AI agents do not work that way.
An AI agent reasons, plans, and executes across APIs, tools, and data sources. It can be prompted to exfiltrate data through an output it generates. It operates at the application layer, not the OS layer. It moves too fast for signature-based detection. And it was never there on a managed endpoint to begin with.
SACR's research identifies exactly this gap. Their ECP framework defines five zones to address it:
| Zone | Name | What it governs |
|---|---|---|
| Zone 1 | Software Posture and Governance | Known software inventory, patch state, application approvals |
| Zone 2 | Application Layer Enforcement | Runtime control of applications, AI agents, and API interactions |
| Zone 3 | Agent Runtime Visibility | AI-native monitoring of agent behavior, intent, and session context |
| Zone 4 | Intent-Aware Behavioral Analysis | Behavioral detection at the reasoning and planning layer |
| Zone 5 | Data-Centric Enforcement | Sensitive data protection before loss occurs |
NeuralTrust operates in Zone 2 and Zone 3 as what SACR describes as an "AI infrastructure control plane" -- not a traditional OS-level endpoint agent. That distinction matters: traditional endpoint tools cannot see into AI agent sessions. NeuralTrust was built specifically to see and act at that layer.
What SACR Found
SACR evaluated NeuralTrust across its production deployment capability, governance coverage, and fit for enterprise AI agent security programs.
From the report:
"NeuralTrust is the leading purpose-built Zone 2 option for organizations managing production AI agent deployments and requiring governance at the reasoning and planning layer which is above and beyond what OS and browser-layer endpoint tools can reach. Its $20M seed backing offers strong market validation for the platform thesis."
SACR's recommendation is direct: position NeuralTrust as the AI infrastructure security layer complementary to traditional endpoint-focused Zone 2 vendors. For organizations with GDPR or EU AI Act compliance requirements, SACR specifically calls out NeuralTrust's EU-native architecture as a significant procurement advantage.
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The Analyst's Verdict
Lawrence Pingree, SACR Head of Research, put it plainly:
"NeuralTrust extends AI security beyond the endpoint by providing runtime governance, prompt injection protection, and policy enforcement across AI agent interactions."
Pingree brings more than sixteen years of industry analyst experience to this assessment. He spent over a decade at Gartner, where he authored more than 300 research notes on endpoint, application, and emerging threat protection. When he draws a line between what traditional endpoint tools can see and what NeuralTrust can see, that line is informed by the full history of the endpoint security market.
His position: the endpoint security stack has a ceiling. AI agents operate above it.
The Platform Behind the Recognition
NeuralTrust's recognition covers the full AI agent security lifecycle:
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TrustGate is the AI agent gateway. It enforces policy at the request layer: authentication, prompt inspection, model routing, and output controls. Every AI interaction passes through it. This is the Zone 2 enforcement layer SACR evaluated.
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TrustGuard is AI runtime defense. It monitors agent sessions for anomalous behavior, detects prompt injection attacks in progress, and enforces guardrails at runtime. This is the Zone 3 visibility layer.
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TrustLens provides agent discovery and posture management. It identifies which AI agents are running in your environment, maps their access permissions, and surfaces posture risk before an incident occurs.
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TrustTest is AI red teaming. It probes production AI deployments for exploitable vulnerabilities before attackers do.
NeuralTrust raised a $20M seed round in June 2026, the largest EU cybersecurity seed to date, to build out this platform. The SACR recognition validates that the platform addresses a real and growing gap in enterprise security architecture.
What This Means for CISOs
SACR is not writing this for vendors. They write for the security leaders who have to decide what to buy and when to buy it.
Their recommendation for CISOs: evaluate NeuralTrust early in any production AI agent deployment program. The reasoning is practical. Runtime security is significantly easier to instrument before agents go to production than after. Retrofitting governance controls into a live AI deployment is painful. Building them in from the start is not.
If your organization is running AI agents in production today without a dedicated runtime security layer, the SACR report makes a clear case for why that needs to change.
Read the full report from SACR
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is Endpoint Control and Prevention (ECP)?
ECP is a security architecture category defined by SACR in their July 2026 research. It expands the scope of traditional EDR to govern AI agents, application-layer behavior, browser activity, and sensitive data movement. SACR argues that EDR has hit an architectural ceiling because it was designed for OS-level visibility on managed endpoints. AI agents operate above that layer, at the application and API level, and require a different set of controls.
2. What does it mean to be a SACR Major Player?
SACR Major Player recognition means the vendor addresses a substantive portion of the category with a product in production deployment. SACR research reaches over 120,000 security professionals, including active CISOs. Their analyst Lawrence Pingree spent more than a decade at Gartner and brings deep independent research credibility to the evaluation.
3. Which ECP zones does NeuralTrust cover?
NeuralTrust is recognized in Zone 2 (Application Layer Enforcement) and Zone 3 (Agent Runtime Visibility). Zone 2 covers runtime control of applications, AI agents, and API interactions. Zone 3 covers AI-native monitoring of agent behavior, intent, and session context. NeuralTrust's TrustGate and TrustGuard products address these zones directly.
4. Why is NeuralTrust's EU origin relevant to this recognition?
SACR specifically calls out NeuralTrust's EU-native architecture as a procurement advantage for organizations with GDPR or EU AI Act compliance requirements. NeuralTrust was designed with European regulatory standards built in, not bolted on. For EU-based enterprises or global organizations with EU data processing obligations, that architecture matters at procurement time.
5. How does NeuralTrust complement traditional EDR vendors?
SACR describes the correct deployment model as complementary, not competitive. Traditional EDR handles the OS and endpoint agent layer. NeuralTrust handles the AI agent and API interaction layer. NeuralTrust governs autonomous AI agents; traditional EDR governs human-operated endpoints and software processes. The two operate at different layers of the stack and are both required in a complete ECP architecture.
About NeuralTrust
NeuralTrust is an AI agent security platform, recognized in the Gartner 2025 Market Guide for AI Gateways and Guardian Agents, and the KuppingerCole 2025 Leadership Compass for Generative AI Defense. Headquartered in Barcelona with ISO 27001 certification.