Sophos leap ‘started before WannaCry’

The WannaCry ransomware attack may have been a “wake-up call”, but the boss of Sophos said today customers were already scrambling to use the cyber-security firm’s software.

“We’ve been growing our customers pretty dramatically anyway,” said Kris Hagerman, the FTSE 250 company’s chief executive

“We’re growing at roughly 10,000 new customers every quarter. The truth is we didn’t really need this type of incident to make that happen.”

The shares jumped again today, up 8% to 399.2p after it revealed revenues rose 11% last year to $530 million (£411 million), though the operating loss widened to $44 million. Guidance that billings would top $1 billion by 2020 also filled investors with confidence.

The shares bounced on Monday as traders pounced on cyber-security stocks in the wake of the global attack which took down NHS systems.

Hagerman added: “It really served as a wake-up call to the world to make IT security a top priority.”

Shore Capital analyst Ben McSkelly, who has a Sell rating, admitted: “Clearly Sophos has performed very strongly this year.”