There are a lot of things a company can cut back on in an effort to lower operating costs. One of the things that absolutely cannot be ignored is information technology (IT) security needs. Deutsche Bank attended the annual Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, and one thing’s for sure. For the time being at least, budgets and wallets are wide open to spend on whatever is required to keep data safe and secure, as evidenced by the huge numbers CyberArk Software posted Tuesday after the close.
In a report, the Deutsche Bank team noted that this conference is more technical in nature, so many engineers are there evaluating the quality of the products. They also reported that there was a lot of focus on application security, as well as threat intelligence data and analysis, including log file indexing and analytics.

Three companies are the top picks at Deutsche Bank, and they all make solid sense for aggressive growth investors.

Palo Alto Networks

This company has been a momentum traders’ dream over the past two years. Palo Alto Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: PANW) is helping to lead a new era in cybersecurity by protecting thousands of enterprise, government and service provider networks from cyber-threats, and it boasted a staggering year-over-year billing growth. Unlike fragmented legacy products, its security platform safely enables business operations and delivers protection based on what matters most in today’s dynamic computing environments: applications, users and content.

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The Palo Alto Networks security platform has new features that were recently introduced that help security professionals overcome the distractions and time spent on problems caused by the overwhelming volume of alerts and manual processes associated with operating many discrete security products, and instead expand breach prevention capabilities and boost operational efficiency.

The Deutsche Bank team makes it clear that the feedback they got from the professional at the security conference was the most bullish on Palo Alto, and the company is gaining real traction with larger data centers firewalls.

Deutsche Bank has a $210 price target for the stock, and the Thomson/First Call consensus target is $193.20. The stock closed trading Tuesday at $173.93.
Fortinet

This company is very well liked on Wall Street, and it has had a solid run. Fortinet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: FTNT) fast, secure and global cybersecurity solutions provide broad, high-performance protection against dynamic security threats while simplifying the IT infrastructure. They are strengthened by the industry’s highest level of threat research, intelligence and analytics. Unlike pure-play network security providers, Fortinet can solve organizations’ most important security challenges, whether in networked, application or mobile environments — be it virtualized-cloud or physical

Fortinet reported second-quarter revenues of $239.8 million, an increase of 30% on a year-over-year basis, beating analyst estimates of $227 million. Product revenues rose 34% to $114.8 million, and service and other revenues rose 26.5% to $125 million. The increase in revenues can be attributed mainly to strength in Fortinet’s network security segment. Wall Street also cheered as the company said the tone of business is very strong.

The company recently unveiled its new Cyber Threat Assessment program designed to provide organizations a detailed look into the type and number of cyber-threats posing risks to their networks, yet are going undetected by their existing security solutions.

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The Deutsche Bank price target for Fortinet is $52, and the consensus target is $51.52. Shares closed Tuesday at $46.93.

Check Point Software Technologies

This company remains one of the top tech stocks to buy on Wall Street for a security presence. Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: CHKP) is one of the best in helping customers protect against advanced persistent threats. Check Point is considered a worldwide leader in securing the Internet, providing customers with uncompromised protection against all types of threats, reduces security complexity and lowering the total cost of ownership. Check Point first pioneered the industry with FireWall-1 and its patented stateful inspection technology.

The Deutsche Bank team pointed out in a previous report that the company’s revenue growth rate has accelerated almost every quarter over the past year and a half. Many on Wall Street think that Check Point should see year-over-year accelerating growth in product licenses, particularly as the security firewall refresh appears to be in the beginning stages. The analysts did say that said checks at the conference were somewhat more mixed, citing a lack of innovation and a higher cost with all the blade subscriptions required.

The Deutsche Bank price target is $95, and the consensus target is set at $92.92. The stock closed most recently at $81.29.

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The Deutsche Bank team basically says that the conference chatter points to the fact that, at least for now, there is no bubble in the security stocks. While some could perhaps use a breather, the industry is hot because it is desperately needed. IT safety and security at high levels is not a luxury anymore, it is a necessity. Aggressive growth investors need to carve out a slot in their portfolios for some of these stocks.

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