Why Fortinet (FTNT) Stock Is Falling

Fortinet Inc FTNT shares are trading lower by 2.91% to $74.42 Thursday afternoon after the company reportedly confirmed a data breach.

What Happened: According to BleepingComputer, Fortinet confirmed a data breach after a threat actor claimed to have stolen 440GB of files from the company's Microsoft SharePoint server. The attacker, Fortib—-, posted on a hacking forum and shared credentials to a S3 bucket allegedly containing the stolen data.

The company refused to pay the hacker’s ransom. Fortinet told BleepingComputer that the breach affected a “limited number” of files on a third-party cloud drive and notified the small group of customers affected.

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Why This Matters: The hack may have customers concerned about the safety and reliability of Fortinet’s services, even though the breach impacted a small group.

Data breaches may lead to regulatory scrutiny, potential fines and costly legal battles.

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How To Buy FTNT Stock

Besides going to a brokerage platform to purchase a share – or fractional share – of stock, you can also gain access to shares either by buying an exchange traded fund (ETF) that holds the stock itself, or by allocating yourself to a strategy in your 401(k) that would seek to acquire shares in a mutual fund or other instrument.

For example, in Fortinet’s case, it is in the Information Technology sector. An ETF will likely hold shares in many liquid and large companies that help track that sector, allowing an investor to gain exposure to the trends within that segment.