Cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks (PANW) could see more upside from its CyberArk acquisition as it pushes deeper into identity security, according to Oppenheimer (OPY) analyst Ittai Kidron. As a result, Kidron raised his price target on Palo Alto to a new Street high of $275 from $245 after attending CyberArk’s Impact customer conference, where Palo Alto rebranded CyberArk as Idira. The key takeaway is that Idira is now being positioned as a core part of Palo Alto’s overall security platform, especially as companies look for better ways to secure humans, machines, and AI agents.
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Kidron said that Idira will connect with Palo Alto’s Strata, Cortex, and Prisma AIRS products, which will give the company first-party identity detection and more detailed privilege controls across its platform. In simpler terms, Palo Alto is trying to make identity security part of the same system that customers already use for network, cloud, and AI security. Importantly, Kidron’s customer survey showed no signs of acquisition-related disruption. Among 22 customers surveyed, 18% expect to increase spending by 20% or more over the next year, 59% expect to raise spending by 5% to 20%, and 22% expect spending to stay flat.
Interestingly, the next growth area could be agentic identity security, which means protecting AI agents and machine identities as they perform more work inside company systems. Kidron said that Palo Alto’s new Secure AI Agents solution shifts security away from secrets-based control, such as what an app has, toward identity-based control, such as who or what the app is. He also said that native integrations with Strata, Cortex, and Prisma are expected within months.
Is PANW Stock a Good Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on PANW stock based on 29 Buys, two Holds, and zero Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. Furthermore, the average PANW price target of $219.58 per share implies 9.3% downside risk.
