Anthropic launches Claude Code Security tool, cybersecurity stocks plummet

Investing.com - On Friday, leading companies in the cloud-native security sector experienced significant sell-offs, following Anthropic PBC’s launch of a tool capable of autonomously discovering and patching software vulnerabilities. CrowdStrike Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:CRWD) and Okta Inc (NASDAQ:OKTA) saw their stock prices plummet by 6.8% and 9.2%, respectively, as investors assess the risk of AI agent tools encroaching on the traditional threat detection market.

The decline was triggered by the release of a limited preview version of Claude Code Security, a feature designed to scan code repositories for subtle logical flaws often overlooked by manual reviewers. The company stated in a release, “Claude Code Security aims to keep this capability firmly in the hands of defenders, protecting code from this new category of AI-driven attacks.”

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Market participants are concerned that Anthropic’s ability to detect “vulnerabilities unseen for decades” could undermine the long-term value of existing enterprise security suites. Cloudflare Inc (NYSE:NET) shares fell 6.7%, while SailPoint Inc (NASDAQ:SAIL) declined 9.1%, as investors worry that AI-native tools are shifting security from passive monitoring to proactive automatic remediation.

Anthropic emphasized that its model, Claude Opus 4.6, identified over 500 vulnerabilities during internal stress testing within open-source code repositories in production environments. The company noted, “Every discovery undergoes a multi-stage validation process before reaching analysts,” ensuring high-fidelity results and minimizing false positives.

The sell-off reflects recent volatility in the software sector, as generative AI transitions from experimental features to a core enterprise function layer. The San Francisco-based AI company predicts, “We expect a significant proportion of code worldwide to be scanned by AI in the near future.”

Although traditional vendors like Zscaler Inc (NASDAQ:ZS) have integrated AI into their platforms, their stocks still fell by 3.5%, indicating a fundamental shift in the competitive landscape driven by the emergence of agent tools.

This sell-off highlights recent fluctuations in the software sector, as generative AI moves from experimental capabilities to a central enterprise layer. When AI-driven alternatives threaten core subscription models, investors have recently penalized legal software providers and educational companies.

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