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Cybersecurity is as soon as once more within the highlight amid a collection of high-profile assaults on firms akin to UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Reside Nation (LYV), Roku (ROKU) and Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW).
The Snowflake breach, which got here to gentle in late Could, might show to be one of the intensive thus far, with hackers reportedly stealing information from doubtlessly 165 purchasers of the information cloud big.
For the reason that hack was revealed final month, cybercriminals have reportedly been demanding payments as excessive as $5M from Snowflake purchasers amid threats their information will probably be auctioned off on the darkish net. The Snowflake hack has additionally been linked to information breaches at Reside Nation’s Ticketmaster unit, Pure Storage (PSTG), Superior Auto Elements (AAP) and Lending Tree (TREE).
In the meantime, UnitedHealth Group remains to be recovering from a ransomware assault that pressured the corporate to pay $22M to a cybercriminal gang to regain entry to its techniques. UnitedHealth administration has estimated the assault will value the corporate as much as $1.15B this yr.
Which brings us to as we speak’s cybersecurity query: Are we really seeing a spike in cybercrime or is it simply getting extra consideration?
We requested SA analysts Julian Lin and Mark Holder of Stone Fox Capital to weigh in on the topic.
Julian Lin: Cybersecurity firms have been noting the potential for generative AI to amplify the cyberattack risk, and we definitely are seeing proof of this going down with a seemingly larger variety of high-profile breaches, together with a 15K account hack at Roku (ROKU) earlier this yr.
It’s unclear to what extent generative AI would possibly affect the cybersecurity panorama over the long run, however one factor’s clear: demand for cybersecurity merchandise stays sturdy even a number of years post-pandemic and can seemingly stay sturdy for a few years to return.
Mark Holder: Gartner forecasts world safety and threat administration spending to surge 14% in 2024 to $215B. Cloud safety is the main development space at practically 25% development to $7B and information safety is forecasted to develop 17% to achieve $4B.
Firms are spending as if cybercrime is rising at a fast clip, however what in the end issues is that cybersecurity spending tends to develop at a double-digit fee on account of rising threats, whether or not a spike in cybercrime is happening or simply garnering extra consideration.
CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) performs into the general ongoing demand in cybersecurity, whereas current IPO Rubrik (NYSE:RBRK) performs into the information safety class and general surge in ransomware the place information safety and backup is so essential to keep away from outages and misplaced information.