JPMorgan has a new cybersecurity play which it says could rally more than 20%

Published Tue, Nov 21 20173:09 PM EST

JPMorgan initiated coverage on cybersecurity provider ForeScout with an overweight rating, citing the company's impressive technological abilities and a swelling demand for company safeguards. With more than one billion devices connected to corporate networks, JPMorgan analyst Sterling Auty estimates that ForeScout's total addressable market may be worth more than $8.6 billion. "ForeScout has focused its efforts on being the leading provider of cybersecurity with the ability to see all devices on a network, control their access, and orchestrate defenses when attacks happen," wrote Auty in a note to clients Tuesday. "Delivering this capability through an agentless technology with real time continuous monitoring sets ForeScout apart from the competition." In the latest in a growing string of cybersecurity attacks and hackings, credit reporting firm Equifax said in September that it had been victim of a massive data breach, affecting 143 million Americans. Personal information including birthday dates, credit card numbers, and social security numbers were jeopardized. But Equifax merely represents one of several companies (i.e., HBO and Sony) that have fallen prey to cybercriminals. ForeScout CEO Michael DeCesare spoke on CNBC's " Squawk Box " late last month and explained how the technology works. "We plug directly into the network infrastructure and then give organizations a dashboard that shows them with clarity everything that's on their network," he said. "What's so unique about the intellectual property of the company is that we're agentless and that we don't require a little piece of software to be on every device that we secure. There really isn't anybody in the market that does it the way that we do it." Such a novel way of monitoring and protecting company information could prove precious to data-driven corporations. "The fact that they can continuously monitor for devices going on and off the network, and importantly control devices as they attach to dictate what resources those devices can access brings the ForeScout solution to a whole new level of capability," added JPMorgan's Auty. The analyst set a $33 price target, implying 22 percent upside from Monday's close.

Control center at the end of the digital trunk that links homes in a housing development in St. George, Utah.

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JPMorgan initiated coverage on cybersecurity provider ForeScout with an overweight rating, citing the company's impressive technological abilities and a swelling demand for company safeguards.

With more than one billion devices connected to corporate networks, JPMorgan analyst Sterling Auty estimates that ForeScout's total addressable market may be worth more than $8.6 billion.