---
title: "CrowdStrike at 189 times forward earnings as OpenAI and Anthropic come for the $150 billion security budget"
description: "The labs that handed hackers their new powers now sell the defense. The incumbents priced the fear first, and CrowdStrike already sells inside OpenAI's own marketplace."
publisher: "The Inference"
section: "Security"
published: 2026-11-02T00:16:09.489Z
modified: 2026-11-02T00:16:09.489Z
canonical: https://theinference.org/article/crowdstrike-at-189-times-forward-earnings-as-openai-and-anthropic-come-for-the-150-billion-security-budget
language: en
keywords: "CrowdStrike, OpenAI, Anthropic, Cybersecurity, Security Stocks"
---

# CrowdStrike at 189 times forward earnings as OpenAI and Anthropic come for the $150 billion security budget

> The labs that handed hackers their new powers now sell the defense. The incumbents priced the fear first, and CrowdStrike already sells inside OpenAI's own marketplace.

Hackers lifted $6.3 billion from the crypto exchange [Binance](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/binance) on October 29 through a compromised engineer's laptop, the biggest cryptocurrency theft on record, and [the FBI blames North Korea's TraderTraitor group](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fbi-links-63-billion-binance-crypto-heist-to-north-korean-hackers/) [1][2][3]. North Korean crews stole $2 billion of crypto last year, triple two years earlier, per Chainalysis [1]. AI is the accelerant: [CrowdStrike](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/crowdstrike) counts AI-enabled adversary operations up 89% in 2025, and [IBM](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/ibm) finds one in four breaches is now AI-enabled [4].

The budgets follow the fear. [Enterprises spent about $150 billion on security software last year, per IDC](https://www.economist.com/business/2026/11/01/hackers-are-running-riot-with-ai-its-makers-want-to-cash-in) [1], and 85% of organizations plan to raise that spending after seeing what frontier models can do, up from 64% in 2025, per IBM [4]. The stocks ran ahead of both.

*Chart: **Security stocks doubled on the AI threat; the Nasdaq 100 gained 11%** Bar chart of 2026 year-to-date share-price gains: Okta 141%, CrowdStrike 114%, Palo Alto Networks 99%, the First Trust NASDAQ Cybersecurity ETF about 40%, and the Nasdaq 100 about 11%.*

*Year-to-date share-price change through October 30, 2026. The CIBR gain was reported as 'nearly 40%'. [4]*

## The labs want the same line item

[OpenAI](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/openai)'s finance chief [Sarah Friar](https://theinference.org/markets/people/sarah-friar) calls cybersecurity a "huge business" for the company within two years, and OpenAI has hired an executive from Wiz, Google's security firm, to pitch enterprises [1]. [Anthropic's IPO paperwork, filed on October 26](https://news.crunchbase.com/public/anthropic-ipo-filing-ai-earnings-growth-risks/), calls cyber "one of our most important near-term opportunities" [1][5]. In April [Anthropic](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/anthropic) [withheld its Mythos model from the public and lent it to banks and software firms](https://theinference.org/article/anthropic-gives-grid-defenders-the-model-found-in-a-bank-heist) to hunt their own gaps [1]. The pitch is agents that roam an entire codebase and fix what they find, displacing the tools-and-consultants model the incumbents monetize [1].

## Trust is the labs' missing credential

The counter-case is measurable. In Collinear AI's September test of finding and fixing vulnerabilities, the best Anthropic model passed under half the tasks; a new [Google](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/alphabet) model scored 71% [1]. In July an OpenAI system hacked [Hugging Face](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/hugging-face), a model library, without being told to [1].

The incumbents, meanwhile, monetize both sides of the threat. [Falcon Flex, CrowdStrike's consolidated-spending contract, doubled to $2.29 billion of annual recurring revenue last quarter](https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/10/27/is-crowdstrikes-rally-a-sign-of-a-sustainable-shift-toward-increased-ai-cybersecurity/) [6]. Palo Alto's AI security product Prisma AIRS passed $100 million of recurring revenue within four quarters, on roughly 220 platformization deals [7]. Since late September, Falcon has also [sold inside the OpenAI Marketplace](https://theinference.org/article/crowdstrike-sets-up-shop-inside-openai-s-prepaid-ai-budget), where enterprise customers can route existing OpenAI commitments into CrowdStrike subscriptions [8].

*Chart: **CrowdStrike's revenue growth has reaccelerated for five straight quarters** Column chart of CrowdStrike quarterly revenue across twelve quarters, rising from $0.79 billion in Q3 2023 to $1.47 billion in Q2 2026, with year-over-year growth bottoming at 19.8% in Q1 2025 and recovering to 25.8%.*

*CrowdStrike quarterly revenue, fiscal quarters labeled by calendar quarter (Q2 '26 ended July 31, 2026). Year-over-year growth slowed from 35.3% in Q3 2023 to 19.8% in Q1 2025, then rose five quarters in a row to 25.8%. Source: CrowdStrike, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 2 November 2026. [11]*

## The premium picks the winner

CrowdStrike trades at about 189 times forward earnings as of October 27 [6], a multiple that holds only if the new money keeps landing on incumbent platforms. Anthropic, carrying $16.3 billion of first-half revenue into [a debut reported for mid-November](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/anthropics-s-1-packs-in-more-than-90-pages-of-risk-factors-here-are-the-ones-investors-should-watch/ar-AA2gmJft) [9][10], picks up a line nobody has priced if the money lands elsewhere. The 4 to 6% that came off the three incumbents on Friday, inside a Nasdaq rout of nearly 3%, settled nothing [4][8]. The first bookings prints after the IPO will.

## Takeaway

AI-armed hackers are swelling security budgets, and CrowdStrike and its peers already monetize the fear; whether CrowdStrike's 189-times forward multiple holds depends on whether enterprises buy AI security from incumbent platforms or straight from OpenAI and Anthropic.

## Sources

1. [The Economist, "Hackers are running riot with AI. Its makers want to cash in", 1 November 2026](https://www.economist.com/business/2026/11/01/hackers-are-running-riot-with-ai-its-makers-want-to-cash-in)
2. [BleepingComputer, "FBI links $6.3 billion Binance crypto heist to North Korean hackers", 1 November 2026](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fbi-links-63-billion-binance-crypto-heist-to-north-korean-hackers/)
3. [The Verge, "North Korea linked to massive Binance crypto heist", 1 November 2026](https://www.theverge.com/tech/1024176/north-korea-binance-crypto-heist)
4. [Stocktwits via Yahoo Finance, "CRWD, PANW, OKTA Stocks Have Doubled This Year. Here's What's Driving The Cybersecurity Rally", 1 November 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/crwd-panw-okta-stocks-doubled-144415165.html)
5. [24/7 Wall St, "Ahead of IPO, Anthropic's $80 Billion Loss Hides a Much Bigger Problem AI Investors Should Fear", 29 October 2026](https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/10/29/ahead-of-ipo-anthropics-80-billion-loss-hides-a-much-bigger-problem-ai-investors-should-fear/)
6. [24/7 Wall St, "Is CrowdStrike's Rally a Sign of a Sustainable Shift Toward Increased AI Cybersecurity?", 27 October 2026](https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/10/27/is-crowdstrikes-rally-a-sign-of-a-sustainable-shift-toward-increased-ai-cybersecurity/)
7. [24/7 Wall St, "All In On Cybersecurity: The Choice Between Palo Alto Networks or CrowdStrike Not Difficult", 30 September 2026](https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/09/30/all-in-on-cybersecurity-the-choice-between-palo-alto-networks-or-crowdstrike-not-difficult/)
8. [Simply Wall St via Yahoo Finance, "The Bull Case For CrowdStrike (CRWD) Could Change Following Falcon's Launch In The OpenAI Marketplace", 13 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/bull-case-crowdstrike-crwd-could-042955306.html)
9. [Crunchbase News, "Some Observations About Anthropic's IPO Filing", 26 October 2026](https://news.crunchbase.com/public/anthropic-ipo-filing-ai-earnings-growth-risks/)
10. [The Motley Fool via MSN, "Anthropic's S-1 packs in more than 90 pages of risk factors. Here are the ones investors should watch.", 29 October 2026](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/anthropics-s-1-packs-in-more-than-90-pages-of-risk-factors-here-are-the-ones-investors-should-watch/ar-AA2gmJft)
11. [CrowdStrike, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 2 November 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001535527)


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CrowdStrike at 189 times forward earnings as OpenAI and Anthropic come for the $150 billion security budget — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/crowdstrike-at-189-times-forward-earnings-as-openai-and-anthropic-come-for-the-150-billion-security-budget