PureFunds CEO Andrew Chanin Says Cybersecurity's Investment Floor Will Only Go Higher

Andrew Chanin is the President of PureFunds which manages the PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF (NYSE: HACK). The ETF caught some nice bids following Wednesday's NYSE outage and United Continental Holdings Inc (NYSE: UAL) system malfunction. Andrew spoke to Benzinga the day members of the HACK team rang the bell at NYSE.

He pointed out the difficulty investors face when attempting to not only select which of the specialty cyber security firms to take exposure to but also in pricing catastrophic events. Due to the uniqueness of the services provided by the various ETFs there is no one "silver bullet protection" that is available to investors, which is why Andrew and his team created the HACK ETF.

When events like Wednesday happen, it is difficult to decide which of the cybersecurity firms to buy -- a benefit for the ETF. Chanin said it makes his firm's product an "immediate tactical play." In fact, shares are up nearly 2 percent on Thursday.

Andrew, on the whole, remains bullish on the space. He expects the sector's investment floor to be lifted as investors realize the need not only for these firms' services, but to hedge their investment in other areas of the market.

According to Morningstar, the ETF's largest holdings at the end of last year were Intralinks Holdings Inc (NYSE: IL), Proofpoint Inc (NASDAQ: PFPT), Imperva Inc (NYSE: IMPV), Science Applications International Corp (NYSE: SAIC), Palo Alto Networks Inc (NYSE: PANW) and Splunk Inc (NASDAQ: SPLK). FireEye Inc (NASDAQ: FEYE) and Cyberark Software Ltd (NASDAQ: CYBR), two firms that often receive the most coverage in the media, were 14th and 19th, respectively.