JPMorgan-to-Apple Data Scares Spur Israeli Stock’s Surge
With each successive data breach scare that’s hit corporate America in recent weeks, from JPMorgan Chase & Co. to Apple Inc. and then Home Depot Inc., the shares of an Israeli cyber-security giant have bounced higher.
While smaller rivals like Palo Alto Networks Inc. (PANW) and FireEye Inc. (FEYE) focus more specifically on the kind of data security used to prevent the recent attacks, Check Point has positioned itself to tap into the pickup in this business too.
“Every time Target or Home Depot or a nuclear power plant or even the U.S. government is breached and it’s in the news, that’s a driver for this market,” Brad Curran, an analyst at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan in San Antonio, Texas, said by phone Sept. 3. “This is just the beginning.”
Sales at Tel Aviv-based Check Point are forecast to grow 6.3% this year to $1.48 billion, compared with a 3.8% increase in 2013, according to the average estimate of 26 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Check Point trails Cisco Systems Inc. in the global network security market, according to Synergy Research Group, which names Symantec Corp. as the third-largest company in the market.
“Companies that are gearing up for the holiday season, the last thing they want to run into is a repeat of what happened with Target last year,” he said. “The cyber-security problem is far from solved at this point.”
Source: bloomberg
