Fortinet News: What to Wait from the Vendor in 2021-2022?

The technology has constantly been evolving to meet the IT market requirements. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for WFA (work-from-home) strategy has increased. Employees need new conditions they can comfortably work in, which means they need to work from any location, on any device, and they need to get access to definite resources. According to the Gartner’s forecast, about 60% of workers will be working remotely by the end of 2024. In addition, about 75% of organizations will be working in hybrid environment. Thus, the hybrid future is awaiting most of the world anyway.

Getting access to corporate resources through poorly secured home networks is not safe. Since endpoint devices are vulnerable, cyber criminals stay sharp to use these weaknesses. According to the recent report from FortiGuard Labs, ransomware grew 1,070% worldwide within last year (from July 2020 till July 2021). Ransomware attacks are provided through implementing different methods from phishing lure via employee and vulnerable ports left open on the Internet to RDP (remote desktop protocol) exploits, and are the top concern for organizations, as they cause data loss and productivity of an organization. In addition, about 67% reported that have been a ransomware target.

Since more and more organizations and enterprises implement WFA approach to their security, they need to deploy solutions that is able to protect users regardless of their location and ensure secure access. Instead of using several vendors, and making this process too much complicated, Fortinet has developed a solution within the Fortinet Security Fabric that satisfies the demands of todays’ WFA hybrid environments. It secures the most common WFA scenarios – the home office, the corporate office, and the mobile worker.

The first one is intended for employees who need to work from home using laptops, monitors, and cameras. At home, they face such issues as vulnerable IT devices, poorly secured networks, which can be easily hacked, and to add more they face challenges that relate to the support of the video conferences. To solve these issues and provide a secure access to corporate apps and network in the data center and cloud, Fortinet offers these users managed enterprise-grade security, which includes FortiClient, FortiXDR, FrotiOS, FortiGate, FortiToken, and the new Linksys HomeWRK for Business.

Speaking of the office scenario, most organizations run their businesses through the usage of applications, access to them, networks to connect them, and device to run them, thus, all these components have to be secured to escape data breach. For this group of users, Fortinet offers a merged combination of essential tools as follows: FortiClient, FortiEDR/XDR, FortiClient, FortiOS, FortiGate, FortiAuthenticator, FortiToken, along with security platforms such as FortiGate, FortiGate-VM.

And the third scenario is aimed at mobile workers who travel for business affairs and get access to unsecured and untrusted networks. They are the target for cybercriminals who are always ready to intercept unprotected messages and attack insufficient devices. The solution of Fortinet for this scenario represents a combination of FortiClient, FortiEDR/XDR, FortiClient, FortiGate, FortiOS, FortiAuthenticator, FortiToken, andFortiSASE Remote.

To keep the leading place among the organizations that produce security products, Fortinet uses AI and machine learning technologies which deliver actionable threat intelligence and critical protection and is a trend in 2021 -2022 in the IT world. To top it all, it’s the only vendor capable to offer coherent security across all endpoints, networks, and cloud due to the Fortinet Security Fabric platform.

Fortinet Certification Exams Changes

Knowing the fact that Fortinet is not only a worldly recognized company known for its cybersecurity solutions and products developed to protect communication service providers, enterprises, and small businesses and that it is famed for not only its firewalls, anti-virus protection, endpoint security components, and intrusion prevention systems, you should consider that in addition, it’s a well-known IT vendor, that offers an 8-level certification program to individuals, that are engaged in cybersecurity field. To add more, Fortinet also offers free training for Teleworkers, IT Professionals, and Security Professionals, aimed at equipping them with skills to secure the company’s network and deal with the current version of NGFW, which is FortiGate Next Generation Firewall. Security Professionals will be able to ensure unparalleled protection of any part of the network on-premise, in the cloud, or virtually.

And as the world of tech and its security sector are constantly changing, Fortinet has the aim to equip users and specialists with the top-notch skill to work with its products and solutions. Its Certification Program contains four certification groups such as:

• Awareness which includes NSE 1, NSE 2, and NSE 3
• Cybersecurity Technical contains NSE 4, NSE 5, and NSE
• Advanced: NSE 7
• Expert: NSE 8

Since the first group is intended for individuals to enter the field of cybersecurity, know the types of products, and be able to solve issues related to them, then the second group is designed for professionals that face the real issues at their workplaces and need to possess the required skills to support the corporate network security policy, provide analytics and security management using Fortinet security devices, and able to operate and support certain Fortinet security products.

The upcoming changes that will take place in 2022 will concern the NSE 4 and NSE 6 certification exams. Regarding the NSE 4 certification, known as Network Security Professional, candidates have to pass one exam either Fortinet NSE 4 – FortiOS 6.4 (NSE4_FGT-6.4) which will be retired on 31^st of March, 2022 or Fortinet NSE 4 – FortiOS 7.0 (NSE4_FGT-7.0).

As of the NSE 6 certification, named Network Security Specialist, candidates have to pass at least 4 exams to become accredited. Currently, 10 exams are available for passing, which are

• Fortinet NSE 6
• FortiADC 5.2
• FortiAuthenticator 6.1
• FortiMail 6.4
• FortiNAC 9.1
• FortiVoice 6.0
• Securing Azure with Fortinet
• Secure Wireless LAN 6.4
• FotiSwitch 6.4.

In addition, this list includes 3 more exams that are going to be retired soon, these are:

• Fortinet NSE 6 – Integrated and Cloud Wireless 6.2 (NSE6_FWF-6.2) last date October 31, 2021
• Fortinet NSE 6 – FortiNAC 8.5 (NSE6_FNC-8.5) last date March 31, 2022
• Fortinet NSE 6 – FortiMail 6.2 (NSE6_FML-6.2) last date March 31, 2022

Thus, if you are interested in cybersecurity protection, Fortinet is a great place to start from, by taking free self-paced training courses. If you are going to become a certified specialist or professional, consider the upcoming exam changes and prepare only for the active ones. If you run your business know which organization is a leader in developing and selling the best security products and solutions as well as which specialist can protect your corporate network and devices that are connected by employees that work remotely, your company data from leakage, and your devices from cyberattacks when you are on your business travel. Fortinet in these cases is the leader you can surely trust.