Reviewed by Gotrade Internal Analyst
Gotrade News - Cybersecurity and software stocks got hammered last week after Anthropic rolled out a new security feature called Claude Code Security. The Friday (20/02) launch adds to a growing list of AI products that have spooked investors about the future of traditional software companies.
According to Bloomberg, shares of companies like Cloudflare dropped sharply following the announcement. Dennis Dick, head trader at Triple D Trading, said the current market environment is scary for investors because selling kicks in relentlessly the moment there is any hint of disruption.
Key Takeaways
- Anthropic released Claude Code Security, which can detect complex code vulnerabilities beyond what conventional analysis tools are capable of
- Cybersecurity and software stocks are under pressure again as investors worry AI will replace demand for traditional software products
- Research shows AI still cannot fully replace human developers, especially when it comes to security and code maintainability
Claude Code Security works differently from conventional security tools that rely on pattern matching. The new tool reads and reasons through code the way a human security researcher would, tracing how data flows through an application and catching vulnerabilities that rule-based tools miss.
According to Anthropic, every finding goes through a multi-stage verification process before it reaches an analyst. Claude re-examines its own findings to filter out false positives, and all patches still require human approval before they are applied.
Over 500 Bugs Found in Open-Source Code
The scale of this tool's capability is pretty striking based on Anthropic's internal data. Using Claude Opus 4.6, which dropped earlier this month, Anthropic's team claims to have uncovered more than 500 vulnerabilities across various open-source codebases that had been running for years.
These bugs slipped through the cracks for decades despite going through multiple rounds of expert review. Anthropic is currently working through triage and responsible disclosure with the relevant repository maintainers.
Software Selloff Wave Keeps Rolling
This is far from the first time the software sector has taken a beating like this. According to PYMNTS, a similar wave of selling hit stocks like Salesforce and Workday last summer.
Bloomberg noted that much of the selling has coincided with the launch of new AI tools from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. Investors are worried that "vibe coding" capabilities will let users build their own apps, cutting into demand for legacy software products.
But that fear has not fully materialized based on the research available right now. According to PYMNTS, researchers found that AI models like Claude actually perform best when human developers review outputs at key checkpoints.
Without human intervention, AI models tend to produce longer, harder-to-maintain codebases and miss security constraints altogether. These findings line up with earlier research on CoAct-1, which concluded that human interaction remains critical for steering multi-agent systems toward reliable outcomes.
This creates an interesting dynamic in the market. On one hand, tools like Claude Code Security genuinely threaten the business model of conventional cybersecurity firms with more advanced and efficient detection capabilities.
On the other hand, full reliance on AI for code security is still far from reality. Investors weighing the outlook for this sector need to consider that the shift from traditional software to AI is not going to happen overnight.
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Reference:
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Anthropic, Making frontier cybersecurity capabilities available to defenders. Accessed on February 23, 2026
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PYMNTS, Anthropic Debuts Security Tool as Cybersecurity Stocks Fall. Accessed on February 23, 2026
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