Enhancing Security Fast, Integrated and Intelligent

Utilizing an architectural approach that delivers transparent visibility across the entire attack surface and leverages integration of the different security components to unlock automation

A security fabric, which covers the ever-expanding attack surface, is powered by purpose-built security processors and uses integration to unlock automation and real-time threat intelligence to thwart even the best cybercriminal. This architectural strategy enables Fortinet to deliver network security at the speed and agility required by digital organizations around the globe.

“Anything that has to do with data and security, we’ve got a solution to offer our clients,” says James Overbeck of Cincinnati, vice president of Fortinet’s central United States sales operations. 

Founded in 2000 by Ken Xie, former president and CEO of NetScreen, Fortinet – headquartered in Sunnyvale, California – touts an ever-growing presence in Ohio. The firm’s first products shipped in late 2002, about a year before Overbeck joined Fortinet’s management team, he recalls. 

“When I came on board at the end of 2003, Fortinet had about 80 employees and $13 million in sales. We now have more than 5,000 employees and $1.8 billion in sales. I think the market sees the constant need for security. It will never go away.”

With that fact in mind, Overbeck notes, Fortinet invests heavily in technology engineering. In fact, half of the company’s employees are engineers. “We have nearly 500 patents as a company, with almost 300 more pending. If you look at our patent portfolio, we have more than the next four closest companies in the security space combined. We’re always investing in technology.”

Fortinet also invests heavily in global threat research. “Our FortiGuard Labs team consists of more than 200 expert researchers, analysts and engineers who spend 10,000 hours a week – over 450,000 hours a year – discovering, studying and breaking up threats and then updating FortiGuard security services to protect against those threats,” Overbeck notes. “The analysis uses data collected from more than 3 million sensors around the globe to protect over 340,000 customers. We’re the number one IT security company with zero-day threat discovery, having identified more than 500 new threats that no one else in the world had identified. Beyond protecting our customers, we’re also connected with the Cyberthreat Security Alliance, the FBI and other organizations involved in tracking cyber threats around the world. As a result, when we discover a new threat, we make sure the rest of the world knows we’ve found it, so they can protect their clients and members as well.”

Forging Ahead 

Complexity may be security’s enemy, but Fortinet has conquered that challenge with its Security Fabric, an architectural approach that delivers transparent visibility across the entire attack surface and leverages integration of the different security components to unlock automation. It also relies on FortiGuard AI, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze a repository of threat data – collected over a period of more than five years – that is immensely larger and more diverse than anything else in the world. This speeds the identification of new threats and automates detection and protection notifications across the Security Fabric. 

And unlike many other network security solutions, there’s no security/ speed tradeoff with Fortinet, Overbeck emphasizes. It’s pure security without compromise. Products and technologies are routinely submitted for independent, real-world testing, which provides customers with the assurances of verified top performance and effectiveness. 

“Not only do we do all the threat research, but we create our own ASIC processors, which is a huge differentiator between Fortinet and our competitors,” Overbeck says. “Our ASIC processors allow us – because they’re specifically built for the security functions we’re providing our clients – to deliver network security at the world’s fastest speeds. So, not only are we doing firewall or intrusion prevention, malware detection or endpoint protection, but we’re also doing it faster and more securely than anyone else. Unlike many other network security providers, we don’t make customers choose between security and performance. Further, we provide the highest security and performance in one solution. That’s been Fortinet’s secret sauce since we started.”

Fortinet recently released its FortiGate 6000 next-generation firewall (NGFW) series, the industry’s fastest 100 Gbps+ NGFW appliance, according to Overbeck, that delivers the best price-performance capabilities in the industry. For large enterprises that need better performance at the network edge, which requires inspection of secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption, but don’t want to break the bank to get it, the 6000 series is the “best security bang for their buck by a very, very wide margin,” per Overbeck. 

Fortinet also recently released FortiOS 6.0, a third generation of network security that further evolves the Security Fabric with over 200 new capabilities across all of its solution areas. One area that excites Overbeck is the enhancements to software-defined network area network (SD-WAN). “A lot of people are talking about SD-WAN, they just don’t know for sure what they want to do with it, but they know they want to take a deep dive look at it,” Overbeck explains. “Fortinet has done a lot of SD-WAN functionality for many, many years, but with the 6.0 release, we’ve expanded the capabilities for better performance of Software-asa-Service (SaaS), voice over IP (VoIP) and other business applications and one- and zero-touch deployments for further reduced complexity and  branch enablement.”

Currently, Fortinet is putting a lot of effort into Operational Technology (OT). “Expensive machinery – some potentially dangerous devices – that can’t run security devices to protect themselves are online today, and they can easily be compromised,” says Overbeck. “Fortinet plans to be  at the forefront of protecting specific protocols heavily utilized in the OT space. Security is a huge gap in the market right now, and we have solutions that help organizations manage those gaps.”

For more information about Fortinet, email joverbeck@fortinet.com or visit www.fortinet.com.