Cyber Stocks Sink on Report Anthropic AI Model Poses Security Risks

Cybersecurity stocks slumped on Friday after a Fortune report raised concern that an Anthropic PBC artificial intelligence model being tested may be used by hackers to skirt current cyber defenses.

Shares of CrowdStrike Holdings Inc., Palo Alto Networks Inc. and Zscaler Inc. dropped more than 5%, while Cloudflare Inc. shed 3.2%. The Global X Cybersecurity ETF fell as much as 6.1%, bringing its decline this year to more than 20%.

The report cited a draft blog post that said Anthropic believes the model "poses unprecedented cybersecurity risks." Fortune said it accessed the draft post via an unsecured and publicly accessible database and reported that an Anthropic spokesperson confirmed that the company is testing a new model and that an error led to the draft being viewable.

An Anthropic spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg.

Anthropic's new model, called Claude Capybara, is being tested by a small group of early access customers, according to the draft blog. Given the model's capabilities, Anthropic is planning to share results from tests to help cyber firms improve their defenses ahead of its release, the report said.

"We think Anthropic is also trying to limit their product being used by hackers," said Bernstein analyst Peter Weed. "This is good hygiene and a baseline expectation for their product."

Earlier this year, a hacker exploited Anthropic's chatbot to carry out a series of attacks against Mexican government agencies, which resulted in the theft of sensitive tax and voter information, according to cybersecurity researchers. In response, Anthropic said it investigated the claims, disrupted the activity and banned the accounts involved.

It's not the first time Anthropic has triggered a wave of selling in cybersecurity stocks. Last month the firm announced a new tool that helps scan "codebases for security vulnerabilities and suggests targeted software patches for human review," triggering a broad drop in cyber names including CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks.

Still, Wall Street analysts were quick to defend shares of cyber names on Friday. Stephen's Todd Weller said the market is "misinterpreting the news," and called it a buying opportunity for investors. That sentiment was echoed by Joe Tigay, a portfolio manager at Equity Armor Investments, which holds Palo Alto, Crowdstrike and Fortinet Inc. across its funds.

"The thing that doesn't add up to me though is that if they are a cybersecurity threat, don't you want the best companies that deal with cybersecurity to be fighting it for you?" Tigay said.