Top 5 NASDAQ Cybersecurity Stocks in 2026

1. Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Year-to-date gain: 95.72 percent
Market cap: US$113.87 billion
Share price: US$155.42

Fortinet is a cybersecurity leader with a broad public-sector procurement footprint, including state, local, education and Department of Defense channels, while remaining a major enterprise security vendor.

Its Security Fabric combines firewalls, secure networking, secure access service edge (SASE) and related tools, providing one vendor across multiple security layers. That breadth helps drive repeat sales and gives it a steadier, platform-like revenue profile than a single-point security product.

This year has seen multiple releases from Fortinet so far. In March, the company revealed the newest iteration of its operating system that Security Fabric is built on, FortiOS 8.0, a unified platform with Secure AI controls, quantum-safe cryptography and more. In June, Fortinet launched FortiSOC, a cloud-delivered security operations center with agentic AI workflows and six security operations.

On the risk side, Fortinet has had to respond to serious vulnerabilities in 2026, including a critical FortiClientEMS issue and other exploited flaws.

2. Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW)

Year-to-date gain: 80.24 percent
Market cap: US$270.58 billion
Share price: US$332.00

Palo Alto offers a broad enterprise security stack that includes next‑gen firewalls, Prisma cloud security, Cortex security operations and Prisma SASE, tying network, cloud and AI‑security use cases into subscription revenue streams.

The company’s positioning in cloud and AI security, plus recurring subscription mix, has driven durable revenue growth and attracted investor attention as a large, high‑growth security software play.

Palo Alto is on multiple federal procurement vehicles and works through government resellers like Carahsoft, which accelerates state, local and federal sales.

3. CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD)

Year-to-date gain: 58.49 percent
Market cap: US$189.12 billion
Share price: US$185.73

CrowdStrike’s Falcon is a cloud‑native endpoint protection and extended detection platform that has expanded into identity, cloud workload protection, SIEM/MDR and threat intelligence, boosting its per‑customer wallet share and telemetry advantage.

CrowdStrike holds multiple federal awards and has been selected by agencies such as CISA/DHS under CDM/DEFEND and other government programs, making federal civilian and defense agencies a meaningful public‑sector customer segment.

Strong customer retention, subscription annual recurring revenue growth and high‑margin cloud delivery have fueled its rapid expansion and investor enthusiasm, reflected in its financial results for its fiscal Q1 2027 ended April 30, 2026. In the release, the company also announced a four-for-one stock split set for July 1.

4. NETSCOUT SYSTEMS (NASDAQ:NTCT)

Year-to-date gain: 56.73 percent
Market cap: US$3.03 billion
Share price: US$42.41

NETSCOUT's core focus is on real-time monitoring of network performance, detecting disruptions and defending against cyberthreats, including DDoS attacks.

In its 2026 report on DDoS attacks, NETSCOUT highlighted the evolutions being seen regarding their sophistication and threat-actor capabilities. According to the company, there were 8 million DDoS attacks globally last year.

In January 2026, the company rolled out new observability capabilities in its nGeniusONE solution to improve resiliency and responsiveness. The following month, NETSCOUT said that it was extending its Omnis AI Insights platform, which converts raw data into smart data, to communications service providers.

5. Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA)

Year-to-date gain: 51.86 percent
Market cap: US$22.82 billion
Share price: US$131.31

Okta is a cloud identity and access management company that helps organizations control secure access to their apps, data and systems. Its software is designed to verify users, manage permissions and simplify authentication across workforce and customer environments.

As organizations increasingly deploy AI agents, identity and access management is shifting from a security backstop to a core operating requirement. The company’s Businesses at Work 2026 report says “agentic AI readiness is identity readiness,” and highlights concerns around AI governance, access control and non-human identities.