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- Cybersecurity stocks CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks jumped to new highs following the industry’s Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.
- Analysts at BTIG wrote that “AI agents have fundamentally changed the threat landscape.”
- Businesses are leaning on more AI tools to fend off more sophisticated cyber attacks.
Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Cybersecurity stocks CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks jumped more than 5% to new highs on Monday on renewed demand for artificial intelligence security tools following the industry’s annual Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.
“The single most consistent theme across our conversations — partners, vendors, and customers alike — was that AI agents have fundamentally changed the threat landscape,” wrote analysts at BTIG in a note to clients.
While AI agents have become the predominant attack threat and the environment is “meaningfully worse,” deployment and AI security tools are only in the early innings,” they added.
Businesses are turning to cybersecurity companies for new agentic tools to fend off adversaries in a hyper-accelerated threat landscape fueled by new cyber models. Executives and potential customers gathered in Las Vegas last week in search of answers and ways to secure systems from rogue AI agents.
BTIG lifted its price target on Palo Alto to $380 a share, reflecting about 4% upside from Friday’s close. Palo’s identity platform stands to benefit from the proliferation of AI agents, while products such as XSIAM and Chronosphere create a “data moat” for other security verticals.
The firm lifted its price target on CrowdStrike to $237 per share, reflecting 11% upside from Friday’s close, and boosted shares of Rubrik to a $109 per-share target.
“We think AI is creating a new modernization cycle in the endpoint security space, which directly benefits CRWD’s core business,” they wrote.
Other cybersecurity stocks rallied, with Tenable and Rubrik last up more than 7%. Netskope and Zscaler jumped about 5% each.
“AI has moved from being a cybersecurity feature to a key pillar of both the attack surface and the attacker/defender infrastructure,” wrote analysts at Cantor.
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Palo Alto Networks and Crowdstrike stock chart.
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