Fortinet Inc Advances Network Protection With an Enhanced Internal Network Firewall (INFW)

New FortiGate 3200D Delivers Industry-Leading 10GbE Port Density for Data Center Scale

SUNNYVALE, Calif., January 21, 2015 – Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT) – a global leader in High Performance Cyber Security Solutions – today announced a new class of Internal Firewall to help address the longstanding challenge of Internal Network Security and the protection of critical data. The Internal Network Firewall (INFW) addresses the ever-increasing sophistication and persistent dangers to organizations’ networks from threats that are inside the network. The company also announced major updates to their FortiGate firewall portfolio, delivering market-leading performance and affordability.

Until now traditional border firewalls have not been effective as internal firewalls due to the high-level of performance required on internal networks, in addition to the complexity to deploy. Fortinet’s Internal Network Firewall (INFW) takes advantage of the ASIC architecture to provide multi-gigabit throughput, without disruption to existing applications or systems. Pre-configured Transparent Mode enables rapid and easy deployment with instant network traffic visibility.

Advanced Cyber Security: Inside and Out

The current state of network threat protection is often focused primarily on the border, working to prevent outside threats. Yet, this approach can be ineffective once a threat gets “past the gate” and enters the internal network by other means, such as end-point devices, infected flash drives, or even internal employees or consultants, putting critical data at risk. The reality is that sophisticated hacker attacks and insider threats continue to penetrate more deeply and persist undetected for long periods of time inside an organization’s internal network, making it even more critical for organizations to mitigate potential damage. Hackers are taking advantage of the typically flat internal architectures to put internal networks at greater risk.

Fortinet is introducing a new class of firewall to combat these internal threats, leveraging proven and robust FortiGate Security Appliances. Fortinet’s new INFW employs a layered approach to security that sits closer to the assets within an organizations’ network, segmenting and preventing breaches from spreading, while providing full visibility into all traffic types, users and devices, to help protect against threats inside the network.

Too often organizations have foregone the critical security benefits of increased network segmentation in an effort to avoid the added complexities required to reconfigure the internal network. Fortinet INFWs come pre-configured in Transparent Mode for a quick and seamless inline deployment. This approach provides immediate insights, utilizing FortiGuard Threat Intelligence services, while still providing the ability to block malicious traffic and enforce a wide range of security policies, all without making changes to the existing network.

The Fortinet INFW will be available on select FortiGate Firewall appliances, featuring multi-Gigabit performance and port densities that meet any organization’s internal security needs. Fortinet’s legendary performance is also necessary to deliver advanced threat protection without impacting business activities. Supporting wire-speed, east-west traffic, Fortinet’s Internal Network Firewalls won’t be a bottleneck.

Supporting Quotes
“Attacks are finding ever more ways into Enterprise networks, and once inside taking their time to cause damage.” Said Jeff Wilson, Principle Security Analyst at Infonetics Research, now part of IHS (NYSE: IHS). “Enterprises need to find new ways to protect their networks from the inside-out, and to protect them continuously, so they can shorten the window of exposure to threats.”

“The Internal Network Firewall (INFW) has been talked about for some time,” said Ken Xie, founder and CEO of Fortinet. “However there have been limitations with firewall technology and performance that have prevented their wide-spread deployment internally. With the sophistication of recent advanced threats, the need for internal firewalls is even greater. Fortinet is providing this new capability to help customers rest assured that all of their assets are being protected.”

Reset Your Expectations of Data Center-Class Performance and Affordability
Utilizing Fortinet’s proprietary FortiASIC NP6 processors, the new FortiGate 3200D appliance delivers the 10X Data Center Performance (vs. competitors) that customers have come to expect from Fortinet. Harnessing Fortinet’s exclusive NP6 and custom content processors enables deep inspection for internal threat protection at the blistering full multi-Gigabit line velocities required to keep up with performance demands at the core of the network.

The FortiGate 3200D also far surpasses the competition, delivering 48 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports — the highest 10GbE port density in the industry – and ensuring broad visibility across even the largest of data center networks. Fully featured and performance driven, the FortiGate 3200D is equally up to the task whether deployed as a Data Center, Next-Gen or the upcoming Internal Network Firewall. All managed through a single pane.

Fortinet also announced additional new FortiGate firewall appliances that deliver extreme performance at price-points that will reset expectations for affordability. Marking the broadest refresh to date of Fortinet’s data center firewall lineup, the new FortiGate 1200D and FortiGate 1000D models continue to build on Fortinet’s recent advanced NP6 performance milestones like the first 1Tbps firewall and the first 100GbE firewall appliances. These updated FortiGate appliances integrate all of the high performance, ultra-low latency, and advanced security to protect data centers today and far into the future, with prices starting well under $20K (US). Fortinet just raised the bar for affordable, high-performance data center security.

Availability and Assets
Fortinet Internal Network Firewall models will be available as a pre-configured option on select FortiGate appliances, including the FortiGate 3200D, within the first quarter of 2015.

The FortiGate 1200D and FortiGate 1000D are available for order now from authorized Fortinet channel partners. For more information about Fortinet’s Firewall products, please visit: http://www.fortinet.com/products/fortigate/index.html