Bad News is Good for Cybersecurity stocks: NXT-I
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Posted On: 10/06/2014 1:14:21 PM
Bad News is Good for Cybersecurity stocks: NXT-ID Inc (NASDAQ:NXTD), Palo Alto Networks Inc (NYSE
ANW), Wave Systems Corp. (NASDAQ:WAVX), Fortinet Inc (NASDAQ:FTNT) by Bill Trexler / October 6, 2014
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Cyber security and mobile security companies climbed higher after J. P Morgan Chase said Thursday that information such as names and addresses for 76 million household customers and seven million businesses was compromised in a data breach this summer as investors flocked to companies that could benefit from banks and other companies that would want to defend themselves from such security breaches.
But the largest US bank said there was no evidence that critical account information such as account numbers, user identities or social security numbers were stolen by the hackers. The bank “continues not to have seen any unusual customer fraud related to this incident,” J. P Morgan said in a securities filing.
“J. P Morgan Chase customers are not liable for unauthorised transactions on their account that they promptly alert the firm to,” the bank said.
“The cyber security landscape is so fraught with apathy, incompetence and improper and incorrect implementations of a security posture that these breaches just continue to happen,” says Paul Ferguson, director of threat intelligence at network monitoring firm Internet Identity. “People are becoming numb and conditioned to not even really notice anymore, and that’s dangerous.”
NXT-ID Inc (NASDAQ:NXTD), Palo Alto Networks Inc (NYSE
ANW), Wave Systems Corp. (NASDAQ:WAVX), Barracuda Networks Inc (NYSE:CUDA) and Fortinet Inc (NASDAQ:FTNT) all made noteworthy gains after news of a cyber attack on J.P. Morgan. If Friday’s rising stock valuations are any indication, investors are hoping this breach is the one that finally nudges corporate c-suites to reevaluate how they protect critical data.
Palo Alto Networks was among the biggest movers on Friday after Piper Jaffray raised its price target to $120 from $110. In a note to clients, the brokerage said next-generation security vendors are capturing a larger share of incremental spend by the “near-daily flow of new breaches.”
TheStreet’s Jim Cramer says news of the cyber security breach at J.P. Morgan (JPM) should drive investors to network security company Palo Alto Networks (PANW) .
Cramer says this is the only outfit with which he deals that he is confident would be able to find a cyber security threat more quickly than anyone else; however, he worries that the company only has $500 million in revenue, which leads him to question how much money companies are not spending on security issues.
Cramer calls the J.P. Morgan attack “troubling” because he thinks the bank is not spending enough on this issue. He believes each bank needs to spend more money on it than they currently are, and this is why he likes Palo Alto Networks.
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