CrowdStrike, Datadog and other cybersecurity stocks slide after Anthropic's AI tool launch

By Jaspreet Singh

Feb 23 (Reuters) - Shares of cybersecurity companies including CrowdStrike CRWD.O and Datadog DDOG.O slumped on Monday, as investors weighed the potential impact of artificial intelligence startup Anthropic's new security tool on the industry.

Anthropic's new feature, Claude Code Security, is designed to detect high-severity vulnerabilities in open-source software repositories and offer patches to fix bugs.

Shares of CrowdStrike, Datadog and Zscaler ZS.O fell around 11%, while those of Fortinet FTNT.O and Okta OKTA.O were down roughly 6%. Palo Alto Networks PANW.O dropped 3% and SentinelOne S.N was down by 5%.

Software stocks have been battered in recent months by market fears around the growing capabilities of AI tools, particularly following the launch of plug-ins from Anthropic's large language model Claude, seen as the startup's push to become an application layer.

"What you're seeing today is really the continuation of a panic-driven, narrative-led selloff," said Shrenik Kothari, director, security and infrastructure analyst at Robert W. Baird.

Claude Code Security does not handle real-time security tasks such as detecting live intrusions, stopping attacks in progress or managing compiled software components in production, which are capabilities provided by other specialized security platforms, said Kothari.

Some analysts have said the selloff is an overreaction, fueled by an overly simplistic narrative that AI would negate the need for existing cybersecurity solutions.

Separately, AI chip designer Nvidia NVDA.O said on Monday it has teamed up with Akamai AKAM.O, Forescout, Palo Alto Networks, Xage Security and Siemens to boost real-time cybersecurity for industrial control systems.