It's fairly safe to say that global cybersecurity has never been more important. As the internet entrenches itself deeper and deeper into our daily lives, the need to protect valuable information and data is more important than ever.
Consumers expect governments and businesses to keep their personal information confidential and safe. This means employing the use of cybersecurity.
As my Fool colleague Tristan pointed out just this morning, the global cybersecurity market was worth $137.63 billion in 2017 but is expected to grow to $248.26 billion by 2023.
Luckily, if an investor wants to invest in this important industry, there is an easy way to do so on the ASX boards.
Image source: Getty Images
HACK or be hacked
The BetaShares Global Cybersecurity ETF (ASX: HACK) is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that hones in on the global cybersecurity industry.
According to BetaShares, this ETF offers a "simple and cost-effective way to gain exposure to the world's leading cybersecurity companies in a single ASX trade – a sector with strong growth prospects".
So, what exactly are you investing in if you own or are thinking of buying units of this ASX ETF?
Well, here is a look at HACK's current top 10 holdings and weightings, as of 6 October:
- Palo Alto Networks Inc (NYSE: PANW) with a portfolio weighting of 6.6%
- Accenture plc (NYSE: ACN) with a weighting of 6%
- Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CSCO) with a weighting of 5.7%
- Crowdstrike Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: CRWD) with a weighting of 5.5%
- Okta Inc (NASDAQ: OKTA) with a weighting of 5.5%
- Cloudflare Inc (NYSE: NET) with a weighting of 3.5%
- Tenable Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: TENB) with a weighting of 3.3%
- VMware, Inc (NYSE: VMW) with a weighting of 3.2%
- Leidos Holdings Inc (NYSE: LDOS) with a weighting of 3.1%
- Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (NYSE: BAH) with a weighting of 3.1%
As you may have gathered from this list, HACK is an ETF heavily weighted towards the United States of America. In fact, according to BetaShares' latest report, 90.7% of HACK's holdings are US companies. A further 3.4% come from Israel, while 2.7% hail from Britain and 1.5% from Japan.
How has the BetaShares Global Cybersecurity ETF performed recently?
Looking at an ETF's holdings is all well and good, but how has HACK performed in recent years? Well, this ETF has returned an impressive 32.2% over the past year alone.
It has also managed to hit a 20.43% per annum average return over the past 3 years, and 21.63% over the past 5 years. Since this ETF's inception in August 2016, HACK has averaged an annual performance of 21.79%.
The BetaShares Global Cybersecurity ETF currently has $657.84 million in funds under management and charges a management fee of 0.67% per annum.
