Shares in leading listed cybersecurity companies have fallen since Anthropic’s launch of Claude Code Security on Friday, an AI-powered code vulnerability scanner.
Anthropic launched Claude Code Security on Feb. 20 as a limited research preview.
Claude can reason like a skilled security researcher
According to the company website, Anthropic’s chatbot Claude “scans your entire codebase for vulnerabilities, validates each finding to minimize false positives, and suggests patches you can review and approve.”
Claude reasons through code “like a skilled security researcher,” it understands context, traces data flows, and “catches vulnerabilities that pattern-matching tools miss,” before proposing a fix.
Anthropic’s most advanced AI model, Claude Opus 4.6, has already found more than 500 high-severity vulnerabilities that have survived decades of expert review, VentureBeat reported on Monday.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI launched a new benchmark on Feb. 19 to evaluate how well different AI models detect, patch, and exploit security vulnerabilities in smart contracts. Claude Opus 4.6 came out on top.
Cybersecurity company shares decline
The top five US-listed information technology security companies by market capitalization have all seen heavy share price declines continue this week.
Palo Alto Networks, America’s largest cybersecurity company with a market capitalization of $116 billion, saw its stock (PANW) slide almost 9% since the launch.
CrowdStrike, which provides endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyberattack response services, had an even greater loss with its share prices tanking 18% since Feb. 20, erasing $20 billion in market cap.
Meanwhile, California-based Fortinet, which develops and sells security products, lost 9% from its share price (FTNT) over the same period, according to Google Finance.
Other leading cybersecurity firms, such as Cloudflare and Zscaler, also saw their stocks slide amid the new AI competitor.
“What you’re seeing today is really the continuation of a panic-driven, narrative-led selloff,” Shrenik Kothari, security and infrastructure analyst at Robert W. Baird, told Reuters.
Cybersecurity firms extend stock losses on Monday. Source: CompaniesMarketCap
Market reactions are not irrational
“These reactions are not irrational,” noted the Kobeissi Letter in a lengthy post on the threat of AI taking over the IT workforce on Tuesday.
“When AI replicates what workers do, pricing power shifts to the buyer. That is the first-order impact, and it is very real.”
Related: Citrini’s AI doom report sees software, payment stocks tumble
Analysts at financial services firm Wedbush said the stock sell-off was due to “AI Ghost Trade fears.” They noted that Anthropic’s move into the market reinforces a broader view that cybersecurity will be a key beneficiary of the AI boom, reported Proactive on Tuesday.
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