Russia has one of the foremost state-sponsored cyberwarfare capacities, and is often cited as supporting hackers who wreak havoc among Western organizations. When Putin invaded Russia on Feb. 24, cybersecurity stocks rallied and have outperformed the broader market by a noticeable margin, peaking on March 2.
Fishbein said the NotPetya cyberattack on Ukraine in 2017, which was attributed to Russian hackers, was estimated to cost more than $10 billion as it spread across the globe. “In our opinion, the current threat environment will give even additional impetus to cybersecurity spending across the board.”
On the other hand, UBS analyst Roger Boyd warned in a recent note, “do not expect a broad-based boost to near-term spending and believe the indiscriminate move in cybersecurity stocks could be overdone.” “Still, we see the cumulative outperformance as warranted given the the impact the consistent cadence of high-profile attacks has likely had on the durability of cybersecurity budgets,” Boyd said.