While on-again, off-again tariffs have created a lot of uncertainty and volatility in the stock market, one set of companies that should see minimal impact one way or the other are cybersecurity providers. After all, cybercriminals and hackers aren't downsizing their attacks due to tariffs.
Let's look at four top cybersecurity stocks that investors might want to consider buying this month.
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1. Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW) is in the midst of a transformation from being largely a provider of next-generation firewalls to becoming a comprehensive cybersecurity platform. Last year, it embarked on a new "platformization" strategy where it stopped selling new point solutions and began consolidating customers onto one of its three main cybersecurity platforms. To do this, it gave away some of its services for free to entice customers to ditch disparate point solutions and centralize on its platforms.
Thus far, the strategy appears to be working, with 1,150 of its top 5,000 customers now using one of its platforms. It hopes to have 2,500 to 3,500 platformization customers by fiscal year 2030. Its main platform is network security, but it has also been seeing a lot of growth coming from its threat detection and response solution Cortex, and its cloud security solution Prisma Cloud.
While its platformization strategy temporarily slowed its growth, it was the right move for the long term, and investors should be rewarded.
2. CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike(NASDAQ: CRWD) is another cybersecurity company that should benefit from the trend of companies looking to consolidate their cybersecurity needs onto a single platform. The company is best known as the leader in endpoint security, which is the protection of devices connected to a network, such as a smartphone or laptop. In fact, it is regularly at the top of Gartner's rankings for best endpoint security.
The company offers a comprehensive suite of cybersecurity protection, including threat intelligence, zero trust, logscale SIEM (log management and threat detections), and cloud security. And its flexible licensing and procurement service, Falcon Flex, is helping drive adoption of its modules.
Falcon Flex gives customers the flexibility to quickly deploy CrowdStrike solutions when and where they need them. Last quarter, 67% of CrowdStrike's customers deployed five or more of its modules, while 21% used eight or more.
With the impact of its highly publicized information technology outage now in the rearview mirror, and customer commitment packages (a set of incentives offered to affected customers, including discounts, subscription extensions, and other compensation deals) rolling off the books later this year, the company should begin to see growth start accelerating. That makes this a good time to jump into the stock.
3. Zscaler
Zscaler(NASDAQ: ZS) is a leader in zero-trust security, a model based on the principle that no user or device should be trusted. Instead, access to applications and data must be continuously verified, authorized, and revalidated to ensure security at every step.
Zero trust is becoming an increasingly important part of the cybersecurity landscape, and the company has been doing a great job of upselling its customers to new zero-trust systems. These include its Zscaler Private Access, which is being used to replace virtual private networks (VPNs), including within the federal government. Other products gaining traction include Zscaler Digital Experience, Zero Trust for Branch and Cloud, and artificial intelligence (AI) analytics.
It has also moved into data security to help prevent data loss in public AI apps. Last quarter, it saw a 40% increase in annual contract value for its data security products.
Overall, the company is growing, with revenue climbing 23% year over year last quarter. Its net dollar retention rate was 115%, showing its strong growth within its existing customer base. With zero trust and data protection becoming more important, Zscaler has a bright future.
4. SentinelOne
SentinelOne (NYSE: S) is a fast-growing endpoint cybersecurity company, trading at a low valuation. Its forward price-to-sales (P/S) multiple is only 6.6 times, despite having 29% revenue growth last quarter.
The company has a big opportunity in the second half of the year, when personal computer (PC) vendor Lenovo will begin shipping its computers with SentinelOne's Singularity Platform installed. Lenovo is the world's largest enterprise PC vendor, selling 61.8 million PCs last year, so this is a big deal for SentinelOne.
The company has also been doing a good job of upselling its Purple AI, which uses AI to help analysts detect complex security threats through the use of natural language prompts. It predicts that Purple's use of hyper-automation to enhance security operations by automating complex, multi-step processes will become "the bedrock for agentic AI in cybersecurity." Purple can also be run across vendor platforms, including Zscaler and Palo Alto.
Given its growth, the opportunities in front of it, and its valuation, SentinelOne is a stock investors can look to add to their portfolios.
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Geoffrey Seiler has positions in SentinelOne. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends CrowdStrike and Zscaler. The Motley Fool recommends Gartner and Palo Alto Networks. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
