About Hardened Review
Hardened Review is an independent, research-based buyer’s guide to cybersecurity software and services for households, small businesses and mid-market IT teams, written and reviewed by the Hardened Review Team.
Who we are
The Hardened Review Team is the small editorial team that researches, writes and reviews every page on this site. Each page names the team as its reviewer and shows the date of its last review. We don’t publish under invented author names or list credentials nobody on the team holds.
What we cover
For households: antivirus, VPNs, password managers, identity theft protection and data removal services. For businesses: endpoint security, penetration testing, compliance automation, managed security and cyber insurance.
Why we built it
Many pages that rank for security buying questions are written by the vendors themselves, or rate products with scores nobody can check. We answer the question first, show where every fact comes from and rank products by a criterion you can see.
Editorial independence
- Hardened Review is not owned by, and does not own, any company whose products we cover.
- Vendors can’t pay for a ranking, a verdict or a review, and they don’t see pages before we publish.
- Products that pay us nothing are ranked by the same criterion as products that do.
- When a vendor sends a correction, we change the page only if a primary source supports it.
How we make money
Some links to vendors are affiliate or referral links: if you buy or sign up through one, we may earn a commission or a referral fee. That money pays for the research. It never changes a ranking or a verdict. Read the full affiliate disclosure.
How we review
We review products by research rather than lab testing: vendor documentation and pricing, independent lab results, independent audits, breach and regulator history and privacy policies. The full method, including our ranking rules and update schedule, is on how we review.
Contact
Corrections, questions and vendor inquiries: see contact.