Investing.com -- Palo Alto Networks shares rose about 2% in premarket trading Monday after CEO Nikesh Arora disclosed an open-market purchase of $10 million in company stock.

The move, disclosed after Friday’s close, came as cybersecurity stocks broadly sold off. Palo Alto shares fell 6% on Friday, while the broader sector, tracked by the HACK ETF, dropped around 4%, compared with a roughly 2% decline in the S&P 500.

The pullback came after Fortune reported that AI startup Anthropic was testing a new model called Mythos with advanced cybersecurity capabilities. Details of the model were reportedly leaked due to weak controls in an Anthropic content management system.

Arora’s purchase marks "the largest open market purchase we have seen from our coverage management teams, which reads bullish, particularly amidst market worries that AI vendors like Anthropic are focusing more on security," Barclays analyst Saket Kalia said.

One criticism Barclays said has raised since the start of the year is that software management teams have not been personally buying their own shares to demonstrate confidence in terminal values, a concern heightened by broader questions about the long-term impact of AI on software businesses.

An open-market purchase, unlike a repurchase authorization, directly commits an executive’s personal capital. "While many teams have announced repurchase authorizations, which are of course bullish, a personal purchase on the open-market arguably “puts their money where their mouth is"," Kalia said.

On the Anthropic threat, the analyst voiced skepticism that the AI company would make significant inroads into cybersecurity. Horizontal technology companies "have historically had mixed success in cybersecurity," he wrote, adding that Arora’s purchase likely reflects a similar view.