The cybersecurity sector had a rough ride last week as Palo Alto Networks (a portfolio company), one of the industry leaders, announced an underwhelming billings guidance for both the current quarter (only +2-4%, after +16% in CQ4) and the full year (+10-11% vs +16-17% previously). Amid healthy cybersecurity spending, Palo Alto’s figures clearly came as…
UK-based Darktrace kicked off the cybersecurity earnings season with a robust set of figures and a guidance upgrade, giving confidence that the recent rally in security stocks is sustainable as fundamentals improve. In H1 (calendar H2), Darktrace delivered 27% revenue growth, 3% above expectations, with an EBITDA margin above 19% (100-200bps above consensus) and raised…
Eighteen months after initial reports of M&A talks, networking giant Cisco announced the takeover of data analytics and cybersecurity software company Splunk in a massive $28 billion deal (both Cisco and Splunk are portfolio companies). The 32% premium is in line with recent sector transactions and the valuation multiple (6x revenue) is in the low-end…
As we commented a couple of months ago, generative AI has been emerging as a weapon for hackers, making phishing attempts (emails or texts inviting a user to open a malicious link to steal his/her credentials) bespoke and then much harder to detect, and helping to reduce malware software development cycles and/or rewrite code to…
The cybersecurity sector has come under pressure over the last couple of days following Microsoft’s introduction of a secure web gateway solution (SWG) called Entra, that complements the Tech giant’s leading franchise in identity/access management and extended detection and response (XDR). SWG – which is one of the main components of Gartner’s defined Secure Access…
The easing of the zero Covid policy in China and of the government crackdown on its Tech industry have obviously been a major positive as both Chinese Tech giants and local companies, that often fly under investors’ radar, enjoyed a significant rerating since the end of 2022. Specifically, cybersecurity firms, that were hit by a…
Ransomware attacks have been increasing at an alarming rate over the last couple of years (between +50% and +100% according to various sources) with ransomware becoming the preferred method for many cybercriminals to monetize their fraudulent activity. With the emergence of the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) “business model” in the hackers’ community, this type of attack is…
Crypto hacks are now making the headlines on a regular basis, as illustrated by the $620 million heist of blockchain game Axie Infinity in March or last week’s $160 million hack of crypto market maker Wintermute. With criminal activity involving cryptocurrencies on track to reach a new record after the 2021 peak ($14 billion, up…
As illustrated by Google’s recent acquisition of Mandiant and Cisco’s increasing focus on security, a convergence between tech hardware and cybersecurity software has been taking place, a move that should intensify over coming years. For networking hardware specialists such as Cisco and Juniper, implementing firewalling and threat detection software in their routers and switches is…
Many cybersecurity companies, including Fortinet, Cloudflare or Rapid7, reported their quarterly earnings in recent days. While revenue and earnings were overall solid, most companies hinted at increasing deal scrutiny from their corporate customers, lengthening sales cycles and softening growth trends going forward as customers navigate a complex environment and are closely watching their spending amidst…