Cybersecurity stocks jumped as much as 12% Tuesday after IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said customers delayed major deals due to AI-driven security concerns.

Krishna told investors that "rapidly-evolving, industry-wide cybersecurity concerns" distracted customers during IBM's second quarter. The comments came as IBM reported preliminary results that fell short of expectations.

The rise of advanced AI models like Anthropic's Mythos has sparked anxiety about more sophisticated cyberattacks. Krishna said businesses are pausing to reassess their security spending needs.

"Mythos is making people pause to say, wait, how much do I need to spend on cyber?" Krishna told CNBC's Sara Eisen. "They're pausing on new deals until they know."

CrowdStrike led the rally, surging 12%. Okta and Netskope each gained about 11%.

SailPoint, Zscaler, SentinelOne and Palo Alto Networks all climbed roughly 7%. The broad-based gains reflected investor confidence that heightened AI security fears will drive increased cybersecurity spending.

Krishna said customers shifted spending toward servers and memory during the quarter. He emphasized that IBM's software business remains insulated from AI disruption.

The preliminary results showed weakness across IBM's software and infrastructure divisions. Krishna attributed some of the shortfall to customers taking time to evaluate their technology needs amid the AI transition.

Wall Street has grown increasingly concerned about AI models' potential to automate and accelerate cyberattacks. Security firms have positioned themselves as essential infrastructure for the AI era.

The stock gains suggest investors expect the AI-driven security concerns to translate into higher cybersecurity budgets across enterprises. Companies are likely to increase spending on threat detection and response capabilities as AI models become more capable.