Shares of leading cybersecurity firms fell on Friday, with CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) sliding 7%, Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) dropping 6% and Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) retreating 4.5%. Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA), SentinelOne (NYSE:S) and Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT) each lost about 3%.
The market reaction followed reports that details of Anthropic’s next-generation AI model were exposed prior to an official launch after being stored in a publicly accessible data cache. The material was reportedly a draft blog post kept in an unsecured and searchable area of a content store.
What the reports said
According to the accounts, the draft introduced a new tier of models called "Capybara," described as larger and more capable than Anthropic’s current top-tier Opus family. The leaked document reportedly asserted that Capybara achieves improved results in software coding, academic reasoning and cybersecurity-oriented tasks relative to Claude Opus 4.6. The draft characterized the new model, codenamed "Claude Mythos," as "by far the most powerful AI model we’ve ever developed."
An Anthropic spokesperson said the company is "developing a general purpose model with meaningful advances in reasoning, coding, and cybersecurity" and that it is "being deliberate about how we release it." The firm attributed the exposure to "human error" in the configuration of its content management system.
Security concerns highlighted in the draft
The draft reportedly warned that the model is "far ahead of any other AI model in cyber capabilities" and cautioned it could trigger a "wave of models that can exploit vulnerabilities in ways that far outpace the efforts of defenders." Those passages underscore the potential for capabilities described in the leaked material to heighten concerns among cyber defenders and market participants focused on AI-related security risks.
Investors reacted by selling shares of cybersecurity names, reflecting sensitivity in the market to developments that suggest both accelerated offensive capabilities in AI and operational lapses in data handling by AI developers. The moves generated losses across the sector on Friday.
Outlook and market context
Friday’s declines captured investor caution as details circulated about the leaked draft. The combination of an alleged configuration error, claims about a materially more capable model, and explicit warnings in the draft about cyber exploitation all contributed to the market’s risk-off response in cybersecurity equities.