02:28 PM EDT, 03/19/2024 (MT Newswires) -- CrowdStrike Holdings ( CRWD ) and Zscaler ( ZS ) remain the "top cybersecurity picks" amid the "highly hostile threat landscape," Macquarie said in a note Monday.

The firm said that the fallout from the cyberattack against UnitedHealth Group's (UNH) Change Healthcare unit in late February can still be felt. The cyberattack, which impacted more than 80% of hospitals in the US according to the note, prompted UnitedHealth to advance more than $2 billion to medical providers after restoring Change Healthcare's electronic payments platform.

Macquarie said it positively views the positioning of CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) and Zscaler ( ZS ) "as core pillars of software-based zero-trust cybersecurity practices."

"We believe CrowdStrike's ( CRWD ) best-of-breed endpoint security platform is ideally positioned to mitigate ransomware attacks, and we think Zscaler's ( ZS ) cloud-based network security solutions provide strong protection against attackers moving laterally within hybrid cloud environments," the firm said.

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