Month: May 2020

Fortinet Industry Perspectives

For many healthcare organizations, the COVID-19 pandemic created a sudden need for temporary testing and treatment facilities. This, in turn, required an expansion of secure network connectivity. However, the expansion associated with COVID-19 that one national government healthcare entity experienced was larger than most healthcare organizations.

During normal operations, this healthcare entity was responsible for operating over 130 hospitals and treatment locations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization needed to open over 20 additional sites as quickly as possible in order to cope with the crisis. By creating new locations, the government entity could work to curb the spread of the virus by providing a local treatment option to infected citizens.

The organization already had a trusted relationship with Fortinet and leveraged the Fortinet Security Fabric to manage network security for their hospitals scattered across the country. When the need arose to securely connect the testing sites to the existing network, the organization trusted Fortinet to provide a solution that would arrive in time to open the new facilities.

A Sudden Need for New Healthcare Locations

The government healthcare entity was already using the secure software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) capabilities integrated into FortiGate next-generation firewalls (NGFW) to securely network over 130 sites and improve user experience for business critical applications.

The new treatment locations created during the COVID-19 pandemic needed to deploy the same SD-WAN connectivity as quickly as possible to send test data for processing. These new sites were often repurposed hotels and conference centers with limited networking or security infrastructure. Every site required a FortiGate NGFW to provide a secure connection to the existing healthcare network.

In many locations, the remote site was capable of connecting over the public internet. However, in some rural locations, broadband internet was not available. In both types of locations, FortiExtender 3G/4G WAN extenders enabled healthcare providers to use mobile networks, either as a backup option or the primary means of connecting over the WAN.

Rapid Deployment of Security Solutions

Because the virus was spreading rapidly, the government entity needed to work with a vendor that it trusted, rather than engaging in a lengthy request for proposal (RFP) and proof of concept (PoC) process. It also required expedited delivery of the Fortinet solutions.

Operating within the healthcare entity’s three-day delivery window, Fortinet coordinated with a number of trusted Fortinet distributors in the area. These organizations had provided distribution assistance during the healthcare entity’s initial Fortinet deployment and could ensure that the new FortiGate Secure SD-WAN and FortiExtender WAN extenders reached their destinations in time.

After the devices were delivered, the government healthcare entity also needed them to be quickly configured. Since many of the new sites were in remote locations, sending trained IT staff to configure them was not a workable solution. However, with FortiDeploy zero-touch deployment, the devices automatically connected to the FortiManager centralized management platform deployed on the government entity’s main network. This platform led the device through any additional configuration steps required. Finally, Fortinet Professional Services helped onboard the IT staff and developed standard operating-procedure documentation.

Flexible Security Solutions Support Rapid Evolution

The government healthcare entity had previously integrated their network security using Secure SD-WAN. This enabled it to rapidly expand its secure WAN by deploying FortiGate NGFWs to its 20 brand-new sites. During the COVID-19 pandemic, and during business as usual, Fortinet is committed to going the extra mile to ensure that its customers have the network security solutions that they need when they need them.

Discover how Fortinet Teleworker Solutions enable secure remote access at scale to support employees with a wide array of access requirements.

Learn more about enabling the latest advances in patient care while protecting against cyberattacks with Fortinet healthcare cybersecurity solutions.

Find out how Echoenergia and New Zealand Red Cross used Fortinet’s Security Fabric for protection from the network edge to core.

Engage in our Fortinet user community (Fuse). Share ideas and feedback, learn more about our products and technology, or connect with peers.

The latest advances in computing, such as edge device hyperconnectivity and the hyperscalability achievements of advanced data center architectures are the result of the ongoing and increasing desire to achieve better performance. Speed is the driving force behind the digital transformation of today’s business infrastructures. It enables access to critical data and resources, drives business efficiencies, scales application development, increases productivity, generates revenue, and accelerates ROI. 

Moreover the past few weeks, organizations have remarkably been able to completely invert their networks in just a few days. The majority of their employees can now access networked resources from the outside instead of connecting from the inside – an effective response to a global crisis that would have been impossible just five years ago.

To measure how the security industry is helping to drive innovation at the speed of business there have been significant advancements, and Fortinet is using the Security Compute Rating to benchmark these advancements. More on the advancements and benchmarking in this post to come, but first a bit of backstory. 

Key to these successes – especially critical now as we continue to push the envelope of digital innovation even further and faster – has been the move away from traditional, off-the-shelf computer processors to custom hardware designed to take on very specific tasks. This specialized hardware enables organizations to push performance in the cloud and devices to new levels.

The Security Performance Gap Threatens Digital Innovation and Business Continuity

When it comes to security – a critical component that keeps all of our data flying around cyberspace without being stolen, corrupted, or ransomed –performance limitations has become a serious challenge for organizations. Increasingly, many organizations can no longer rely on security devices to effectively perform their tasks without bottlenecking traffic, reducing user experience, or interfering with business strategies. Inspecting and securing data is an inherently complex and processor-intensive proposition, and vendors have traditionally responded to increased demands by simply soldering more traditional CPUs to their motherboards – and raising their prices. 

That strategy has now met its functional limits. Because of the unreasonable price/performance ratio of most security solutions on the market, organizations have been forced to purchase overpriced security and networking devices that only provide limited performance and scalability headroom. This not only has an impact on digital innovation, forcing many organizations to replace the security devices in their datacenters with things like VLANs and Layer 4 security – and which also meant that when the recent crisis hit those organizations also had to buy expensive VPN upgrades or even purchase new firewalls to support their remote worker initiatives.

The problem is that most of the security community has steadfastly refused to invest in the sorts of specialized development needed to meet today’s demands, let alone the challenges coming around the corner due to the imminent arrival of 5G, or the new demands of smart environments such as cars, buildings, and cities. This lack of specialized, performance-enhancing hardware has meant that organizations have been put in the very uncomfortable position of having to choose between security and performance.

Accelerating Security-Driven Networking with Fortinet Security Processors

Fortinet is one of the few security vendors actually committed to securing and driving forward today’s essential digital innovation efforts. With a deeply rooted passion for innovation since we first opened our doors in 2000, we have continually set industry records for performance and speed. A crown jewel of innovation has been Fortinet’s development of specialized security processors (SPUs). 

The Fortinet Family of SPUs are specially designed security processors that have been engineered to provide unmatched performance at a fraction of the cost of traditional CPUs. This uniquely allows Fortinet solutions to provide accelerated network security and accelerated AI in the cloud – and at a price/performance point no one in the industry can match. 

Fortinet’s Security-Driven Networking solution based NGFW, SD-WAN, SD-Branch, IPS and Segmentation are powered with the following security processors:

• Content Processor 9 (CP9): This ninth generation of our content processor protects applications while optimizing user experience with the least performance degradation. The CP9 works as a CPU co-processor, taking on resource-intensive security functions such as SSL/TLS decryption – including TLS1.3, IPS, and anti-malware.
• System-on-a-Chip 4 (SoC4): Fortinet’s SoC4 is a purpose-built security and industry’s only Secure SD-WAN processor that has achieved the highest Security Compute Ratings in the industry in supporting WAN Edge transformation. The SoC4 consolidates network and content processing functions onto a single chip to deliver blazingly fast application identification, steering, and overlay performance.
• Network Processor 7 (NP7): Fortinet’s NP7 SPU works with FortiOS functions to delivering superior firewall performance for IPV4, IPV6, and multicast traffic – with ultra-low latency as little as three microseconds to support latency sensitive applications and services operating in the most demanding professional environments.

Benchmarked by the Security Compute Rating

To highlight the difference that purpose-built processors can provide, Fortinet developed the Security Compute Rating benchmark that compares the performance of Fortinet’s ASIC-based Next-Generation Firewall appliance to other NGFW and SD-WAN vendors that utilize generic CPUs for networking and security capabilities.

The industry average is computed by calculating the average performance of leading solutions, including listed vendors. Security Compute Rating performance numbers are based on each vendor’s datasheets. A “N/A” input reflects that the vendor chooses not to publish certain critical performance specifications, such as SSL inspection. As a result, the calculated industry average may actually be much lower, and the performance gap between Fortinet and that vendor is significantly wide.

Fortinet SPUs outpace other solution in the market with the highest Security Compute Ratings for benchmarks such as:

• Stateful Firewall throughput
• IPsec VPN performance
• Concurrent sessions
• Sessions per second 
• Inspection of encrypted data

Speed, Scalability, and Cost – a Critical Combination

Security-Driven Networking solutions are not only faster and scale further than the competition, they are also much more cost-effective due to the greater affordability of custom chips. As a result, organizations can enjoy far greater headroom for digital innovation with Fortinet TCO savings, or to have the resources to respond to unexpected events. 

In a world where reliable, high-performance security is not only essential but also increasingly difficult to come by, Fortinet is the only vendor able to apply 20 years of unique security hardware innovation to offer its customers a tangible and proven solution to the problem. This ensures that businesses, industries, governments, and other organizations around the world are able to innovate freely and respond immediately to critical events without compromise. 

Learn how to enable digital innovation with massive speed, scale and performance.

Engage in our Fortinet user community (Fuse). Share ideas and feedback, learn more about our products and technology, or connect with peers.

The road to a cybersecurity career is not always a straight line. Sometimes, people stumble across it on the way to a different destination and find that cybersecurity is a good fit or an interesting career. Professionals discovering that cybersecurity sparks their interest is good for the industry as the cyber skills gap continues to be a significant problem around the world. At Fortinet, we provide training for IT professionals, students, veterans, veteran spouses and more through our Network Security Expert (NSE) Institute programs to help more people enter the field or upskill for career growth in an effort to close the skills gap. 

We recently spoke with Caitlyn Carroll, a graduate of NSE Institute’s FortiVet program, who started a career in cybersecurity at Interface Systems. Here’s what she had to say about cyber security awareness training and her transition into a career in cybersecurity. 

What Led You to a Career in Cybersecurity? 

I was studying for my master’s degree in public health and community programming while also working at a YMCA. I’m a military spouse, and my husband was deployed at the time. I was working 80 hours a week for barely above minimum wage. A friend told me about the FortiVet program, which provides mentoring and training for not just veterans but also their spouses like me. Through the FortiVet program I was connected with a job at Interface Systems, a Fortinet partner that is part of the program’s hiring ecosystem. The program helped me with my resume, interviewing skills and matched me with an employer, in addition to giving me access to their Network Security Expert (NSE) Institute training curriculum. FortiVet really made an impact in my life – in fact, I even ended up writing a paper about it for my grad program. 

What Do You Like About the Cybersecurity Industry?

It affects and touches everyone, from individuals to companies and government agencies. It’s the present and future. It’s not a “here today and gone tomorrow” sort of industry. It’s going to be a needed sector for the foreseeable future. For that reason, cybersecurity offers lots of opportunities and a challenging career – and I like a challenge.

What Recommendation Would You Give to Someone Looking to Start or Pivot Into a Career in Cybersecurity?

I would strongly recommend that they look into Fortinet’s Network Security Expert (NSE) Institute’s free training for all levels, whether you need broad security awareness like me, or you are looking to upskill or advance your technical security skills. I would also tell people to challenge themselves. After I’m done with Network Security Expert (NSE) 2 course, which is Fortinet’s second cyber awareness lesson, I want to take NSE 3 and challenge myself to take more technical training, even though my current marketing position doesn’t absolutely require it. 

How Have Network Security Expert Courses 1 and 2 Help You Increase Your Cybersecurity Awareness?

I’ve definitely expanded my knowledge about the threat landscape; it’s been interesting to learn about the many different threat actors. These courses are very consumable and engaging, too. I’m taking other trainings, and I tend to tune out because it’s really long, but the NSE Institute’s training format makes it easy to follow and stay engaged.

I also like the quizzes at the end, because I like to make sure I absorbed the information. I can be tested to see if I would fall for a threat in my email, for example, which puts my learning into practice.

What Are the Benefits for a Company Hiring Someone From the FortiVet Program?

Veterans share a set of desirable traits – a strong work ethic, dedication and loyalty – that they pick up during time in the service is brought to all aspects of life and work. I’ve seen firsthand how hard veterans who are now in civilian professions work. The most difficult part is transitioning into civilian life and that’s where FortiVet plays a crucial role in making that transition a million times easier.

Who Would You Recommend NSE 1 and NSE 2 Courses For?

Because cybersecurity touches everyone’s lives, these courses are great for anyone, whether you’re a middle school student or someone’s grandma with no tech experience. These two courses provide cybersecurity awareness that is critical for everyone to know.  I’m telling my husband and our friends to take it – basically, I tell everyone I know! It’s great, foundational information that you can use every day to prevent from falling for threats. My husband plans to start the courses this summer based on my glowing recommendations.