Here we go again. Just like the Colonial Pipeline and beef supplier JBS, hackers have once again brought an alarming number of businesses to their knees. As many as 1,500 organizations were compromised by ransomware following an incident in the United States at information technology firm Kaseya, which remotely controls programs for companies that manage internet services for businesses.
Officials think that the breach may be affiliated with the Russian-linked REvil ransomware gang and is one of the largest criminal ransomware hacks in history. In Sweden, as many as 800 stores of the supermarket chain Coop couldn’t open on Saturday after the attack knocked their cash registers offline.
Once again investors are reminded that cybersecurity software is crucial for business and government, and it is a pretty safe bet that those in decision-making positions will continue to demand security that is impenetrable. With the most recent hack, the criminals are demanding $70 million to restore the stolen data. After both Colonial and JBS paid up, it’s a good bet that others will have to as well.
We screened our 24/7 Wall St research database looking for the top cybersecurity software companies and found four that make sense for more aggressive growth investors seeking a stake in this dynamic silo of technology. It is important to remember that no single analyst report should be used as a sole basis for any buying or selling decision.
Cloudflare
This off-the-radar cybersecurity pick has big potential upside in a red-hot industry, and it could be a potential takeover target. Cloudflare Inc. (NYSE: NET) provides an integrated cloud-based security solution to secure a range of combinations of platforms, including public cloud, private cloud, on premise, software-as-a-service applications, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Cloudflare’s security products include Cloud Firewall, Bot Management, Distributed Denial of Service, Infrastructure Protection, IoT, SSL/TLS, Secure Origin Connection and Rate Limiting. The company also offers performance solutions, which include Content Delivery, Intelligent Routing, and Mobile Software Development Kit, as well as Content, Mobile, and Image Optimization.
In addition, the company provides Reliability solutions, comprising Load Balancing, Anycast Network, Virtual Backbone, DNS, DNS Resolver and Always Online. Further, the company provides solutions to protect an organization’s internal resources, such as devices, users, applications and data, comprising Zero Trust Security and Access Management, which secures, authenticates and monitors user access to internal applications and infrastructure hosted on-premise or in-cloud environments, as well as Secure Web Gateway to secure and filter outbound internet traffic to protect employees from threats on the public internet and to help protect internet-browsing employees from bringing malware or vulnerable code into an organization.
The Truist Securities Buy rating comes with a $110 price target, which tops the $99.47 consensus target. Cloudflare stock rose almost 3% on Tuesday and closed at $108.93 a share.
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