Cybersecurity stocks dip after Anthropic’s Claude Code Security
Shares of major cybersecurity companies fell following Anthropic’s debut of Claude Code Security, an AI-powered code vulnerability scanner introduced on Feb. 20 as a limited research preview.
Anthropic details code-scanning capabilities
According to Anthropic’s website, Claude scans complete codebases for vulnerabilities, validates findings to reduce false positives, and proposes patches for review and approval. The company says the system evaluates code “like a skilled security researcher,” interpreting context, tracing data flows, and identifying issues that pattern-based tools may overlook before suggesting fixes.
VentureBeat reported on Monday that Anthropic’s most advanced model, Claude Opus 4.6, has identified more than 500 high-severity vulnerabilities that persisted despite years of expert scrutiny. On Feb. 19, OpenAI launched a benchmark to assess how well AI models detect, patch, and exploit security flaws in smart contracts, with Claude Opus 4.6 ranking first.
Cybersecurity company shares decline
The five largest U.S.-listed information security firms by market capitalization extended losses this week. Palo Alto Networks, the largest by market value at $116 billion, saw its shares (PANW) drop almost 9% since the launch. CrowdStrike declined 18% since Feb. 20, wiping out roughly $20 billion in market capitalization. Fortinet’s stock (FTNT) fell 9% over the same period, according to Google Finance. Cloudflare and Zscaler also traded lower amid the emergence of a 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.
Market reactions are not irrational
“These reactions are not irrational,” the Kobeissi Letter wrote on Tuesday in a post discussing the potential for AI to displace portions of the IT workforce. “When AI replicates what workers do, pricing power shifts to the buyer. That is the first-order impact, and it is very real.”
Analysts at Wedbush described the sell-off as driven by “AI Ghost Trade fears,” according to Proactive on Tuesday. They added that Anthropic’s entry supports a broader view that cybersecurity remains a key beneficiary of the AI cycle.
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