A double win at the Cas d'Or 2026: what identity governance success looks like in the public sector

Identity governance in the public sector rarely makes headlines. That changed recently when a transformative IGA project powered by Netwrix Identity Manager picked up two major awards at the Cas d'Or 2026, the French cybersecurity awards recognizing standout projects across the industry.

The project, delivered by Netwrix channel partner Ariovis for a French public-sector organization, was recognized in two categories:

• Grand Prize, Cyber Governance & Risk Management
• Public Sector Award

The jury, made up of experts from large enterprises across France, praised the project's technological innovation, its measurable impact on security and operations, and its ability to address the specific pressures facing public organizations. For Netwrix and Ariovis, the recognition is a useful moment to look at why identity governance and administration (IGA) has become such a strategic lever for public-sector IT teams, and what good looks like when it's done well.

From Usercube to Netwrix Identity Manager

Netwrix Identity Manager has deep European roots. The product was originally developed in Marseille by Usercube, a French software company founded in 2009 that built its reputation on simplifying identity governance for complex organizations. Netwrix acquired Usercube in August 2022, bringing its IGA capabilities into a broader identity security platform.

Why European roots matter for public-sector customers

European-built technology, tailored to the kinds of organizational structures and compliance demands common across France and the wider EU, now sits inside a global identity security platform with the scale, research, and integrations that larger cybersecurity programs require. For public-sector buyers evaluating sovereignty, data residency, and local support, that combination is a meaningful differentiator.

What Netwrix Identity Manager actually does

At its core, Netwrix Identity Manager centralizes, automates, and secures the management of identities and access across the organization. A few capabilities stand out for public-sector deployments.

Core capabilities

• A centralized identity repository covering employees, contractors, service accounts, and non-human identities in a single view
• Prebuilt connectors for common systems including Active Directory, ITSM platforms, and ERP solutions, which shorten integration timelines
• Business-role modeling that replaces ad-hoc permission assignment with consistent, auditable logic
• Automated provisioning and deprovisioning tied to the joiner, mover, leaver lifecycle
• Proactive governance controls that detect and flag access deviations in real time

The outcome public-sector IT teams tend to look for is predictable: identity governance that is industrialized, auditable, and secure, without requiring a permanent army of manual operators behind it.

Why the public sector is under particular pressure

Public organizations face a specific set of IGA challenges that don't always map cleanly to commercial enterprise patterns.

The public-sector IGA reality

In that environment, IGA stops being a back-office tool and starts being a strategic enabler. The right platform gives public-sector teams a way to respond to new rules, new threats, and new organizational structures without rebuilding their identity layer each time.

What the award-winning project delivered

The project Ariovis delivered reflects the pattern we see consistently across successful public-sector IGA rollouts.

Outcomes achieved with Netwrix Identity Manager

• Centralized every identity into a single source of truth, across staff, contractors, and technical accounts
• Automated provisioning and deprovisioning, cutting manual workload and closing the access-risk window when people change roles or leave
• Structured access rights around business roles rather than individual permission grants
• Maintained continuous compliance through ongoing control checks and audit-ready reporting
• Improved the user experience, so that access requests and approvals feel less like an obstacle course

The measurable benefits

The benefits that follow this kind of rollout are usually a significant reduction in access errors and identity-related risk, meaningful time savings for IT teams, better traceability and auditability, and stronger adoption among business users because the system is structured around the way the organization actually works.

IGA as a cornerstone of cybersecurity strategy

The recognition at the Cas d'Or 2026 reinforces a broader industry trend. Identity has become the primary attack surface in most organizations, and identity governance is increasingly treated as a cornerstone of any serious cybersecurity strategy, not a compliance afterthought.

Modern IGA solutions need to balance three things that used to be in tension: security, compliance, and day-to-day simplicity for the people using the system. And European innovation continues to produce strong, competitive alternatives in this space, offering organizations genuine choice beyond the legacy incumbents.

The role of a strong channel partner

Technology alone doesn't win awards. Projects like this one depend on a partner that understands both the product and the specific realities of the customer's environment. Ariovis brought deep expertise in identity governance and in the operational constraints public-sector organizations navigate every day, from procurement rules to user-population complexity.

That partnership model, where Netwrix provides the platform and a specialist partner delivers the implementation, is a large part of what makes outcomes like this possible. It's also a model we're continuing to invest in across France and the wider EMEA region.

Looking ahead

Identity governance is a moving target. New regulations, new threat patterns, and the rapid rise of non-human identities driven by AI agents and automation all mean that the IGA requirements of 2026 look different from those of even two years ago. Platforms need to keep up, and so do the teams running them.

The Cas d'Or recognition is a nice milestone. More importantly, it's validation that the combination of a modern IGA platform, a capable channel partner, and a public-sector customer willing to invest in getting identity right can produce results worth celebrating.

Learn more

• Explore Netwrix Identity Manager, our IGA platform for organizations of any size.
• See how Netwrix approaches identity management across the joiner, mover, leaver lifecycle.
• Learn about the Netwrix identity security portfolio for detection, response, and recovery.
• Read the original Netwrix and Usercube announcement from 2022.
• Find a Netwrix channel partner near you.