HGC Global Communications Limited (HGC), a fully-fledged ICT service provider and network operator with extensive global coverage, today announced that it has achieved Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN and SD-Branch Partner Specializations as part of the Fortinet Engage Partner Program.  

In a fast-paced industry, specializations focused on market opportunities enabled by the Fortinet Engage Partner Program help partners be recognized and valued by current and potential customers as trusted advisors who have the expertise, services, and technologies they need to meet their digital acceleration needs.  

“By offering comprehensive cybersecurity solutions, HGC Philippines can now provide its clients with a complete one-stop-shop for both connectivity and security needs. In a highly competitive ICT SP market, partnering with Fortinet to provide high-performance cybersecurity solutions gives our clients the confidence they need to protect their business. We are excited about the prospects of this collaboration and look forward to growing our business together, while offering the best value and technology to our customers,” said Mike De Castro, President of HGC Philippines. 

With the Secure SD-WAN Specialization, partners are validated by Fortinet to provide a high-performance, scalable, and flexible secure SD-WAN solution for organizations to deliver superior quality of experience, simplify and secure WAN architecture, and achieve operational efficiencies at the WAN edge. These partners understand the value of convergence to maximize digital acceleration for customers.    

With Secure SD-Branch Specialization, partners have demonstrated expanded expertise about networking and security focused on Fortinet’s next generation firewall, switch, and wireless access point solutions. These partners have proven their ability to provide a converged networking and security solution to deliver the most secure wired and wireless offering in the networking industry. This includes SD-Branch capabilities to extend security from the WAN edge to the LAN Edge in distributed branch offices.   

(Lower L-R) Sheryl Go, Senior Vice President for Sales of MEC Networks Corporation, Mike De Castro, President of HGC Global Communications Philippines, and Rachelle Alcantara, Team Lead for Channel Account Management of Fortinet Philippines, during the contract signing at the Grand Hyatt Manila, along with key executives from the three organizations.

“As businesses in the Philippines increasingly embrace digitalization, they also become more exposed to cyber threats. With cybercriminals evolving their tactics, it is crucial to have robust cybersecurity solutions to counter the growing sophistication of these threats. Through this partnership, we aim to empower HGC to provide its clients with the necessary protection to minimize the risk and impact of cyber-attacks. We are thrilled to see what the future holds for this collaboration,” said Rachelle Alcantara, Team Lead for Channel Account Management of Fortinet Philippines.  

A Program Focused on Enabling Opportunities for Partners  

Fortinet is committed to helping partners meet new and evolving customer challenges created by work-from-anywhere models, hybrid IT environments, and the evolving threat landscape through
Fortinet’s Engage Partner Program and enablement tools for partners. The program is focused on enabling growth opportunities that are unique with Fortinet’s expansive portfolio built around the Fortinet Security Fabric, designed to secure customers’ entire infrastructure from the data center to the cloud.  

In addition, Fortinet is committed to helping partners grow productive, predictable, and rewarding relationships to differentiate from competitors. The Fortinet Engage Partner program helps partners acquire the industry knowledge they need to increase business opportunities, deliver digital acceleration for customers with customizable programs, and accelerate partner growth.  

FAQ

Fortinet, the global cybersecurity leader driving the convergence of networking and security, today announced new and enhanced products and services for operational technology (OT) environments as an expansion of the Fortinet Security Fabric for OT. Fortinet enables organizations to build a platform of integrated solutions to effectively mitigate cyber risk across OT and IT environments.

The State of OT Security 

As more industrial environments increase connectivity with external and internal applications, devices, and corporate IT networks, the attack surface grows exponentially, exposing critical OT assets to increasingly advanced and destructive threats. The 2022 Fortinet State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report found that 93% of organizations had one or more security intrusions in the past year, with 61% of intrusions affecting OT systems. Security breaches have the potential to disrupt critical infrastructure, resources, and services that support everything from local communities to entire nations. Organizations must prioritize securing their OT environments by integrating tools and practices to help alleviate security risks that may arise from lack of visibility and real-time response.

Securing OT Environments with the Fortinet Security Fabric for OT 

Highlighting its commitment to OT security, Fortinet has released new and enhanced products and services to help organizations better protect their OT environments. Fortinet’s OT solutions are natively integrated across the Fortinet Security Fabric to seamlessly enable IT/OT convergence and connectivity. This helps improve visibility and real-time response across the entire attack surface and empowers security operations center (SOC) teams to become more efficient and effective in their time to respond across factories, plants, remote locations, and vehicles.

New specialized products include: 

• FortiGate 70F Rugged Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) is the latest addition to Fortinet’s rugged portfolio designed for harsh environments and features a new compact design with converged networking and security capabilities on a single processor. The 70F has FortiGuard AI-powered enterprise-grade security services and delivers complete coverage for content, web and device security with dedicated OT and IoT services that are natively integrated with SD-WAN, universal zero trust network access (ZTNA), and LAN edge controllers. 5G support is also available through an integration with FortiExtender.
• FortiDeceptor, Fortinet’s deception technology for early breach detection and attack isolation, is now available as an industrially hardened rugged appliance – the FortiDeceptor Rugged 100G – for harsh industrial environments. FortiDeceptor (both appliance and VM) also provides new OT/IoT/IT decoys to support diverse environments. To combat emerging threats and vulnerabilities, FortiDeceptor also now enables on-demand creation of deception decoys based on newly discovered vulnerabilities, or suspicious activity, providing automated, dynamic protection across OT/IoT/IT environments.
• FortiPAM Privileged Access Management for Secure Remote Access offers enterprise-grade privileged access management for both IT and OT ecosystems. It includes secure remote access to critical assets regulated and monitored through workflow-based access approvals and session video recording. FortiPAM also supports secure file exchange and a password vault to manage all credentials and keep them secret. It supports integration with FortiClient, FortiAuthenticator, and FortiToken to enable ZTNA, single sign-on, and multi-factor authentication.

New enhancements providing SOC teams with faster time to response in OT and IT environments include:

• FortiSIEM unified security analytics dashboards now include event correlation and mapping of security events to the Purdue Model. It also includes built-in parsers for OT security solutions, a MITRE ATT&CK for ICS (industrial control system) dashboard for OT-specific threat analysis, and support for data-diode technologies.
• FortiSOAR now offers features to reduce alert fatigue and enable security automation and orchestration across IT and OT environments. Features include IT/OT dashboards mapped to the Purdue Model hierarchy, OT-specific playbooks for threat remediation, MITRE ATT&CK for ICS for threat analysis, and enhanced integration and connectors for OT threat intelligence.
• FortiGuard Industrial Security Service now includes more than 2,000 application control signatures for OT applications and protocols that support deep packet inspection. The service also includes intrusion prevention signatures for over 500 known ICS vulnerabilities, so vulnerable assets can be virtually patched using FortiGate’s next-generation intrusion prevention system.

New OT specialized assessments and readiness services to stay ahead of threats include: 

• Fortinet Cyber Threat Assessment Program (CTAP) for OT validates OT network security effectiveness, application flows, and includes expert guidance, enabling organizations to improve the security posture of their OT environments.
• OT Tabletop Exercises for OT Security Teams are led by FortiGuard Incident Response team facilitators with expertise in threat analysis, mitigation, and incident response. The exercises help OT security teams identify security gaps through a series of real-world OT attack scenarios to test an organization’s incident response plan.

An Integrated Approach to OT Security 

Today’s announcement builds on Fortinet’s long-time support for OT customers with solutions specifically designed for cyber-physical security as part of the Fortinet Security Fabric for OT. This includes more than 500 technology integrations with over 300 Fabric-Ready Technology Alliance partners, FortiGuard Labs threat intelligence, and enhanced security operations management as organizations expand their IT/OT network operations center (NOC) and SOC capabilities.

Join Fortinet at the Operational Technology Security Summit 

Explore the convergence of cybersecurity across IT and OT networks from the production facility to the board room at the Operational Technology Security Summit, a virtual event happening on March 1, 2023, from 8:30am – 11:30am PT. Register now to learn how to reduce operational risk and increase network and cybersecurity resiliency.

Multi-Faceted Approach Accelerates Fortinet’s Global Commitment to Eliminate the Cybersecurity Skills Gap 

John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet 

“Fortinet builds ML-driven automation into all of its SOC offerings to support short-staffed teams affected by the cybersecurity skills shortage. But technology alone won’t solve this issue, which is why we are dedicated to also delivering human-based SOC augmentation services to provide immediate support while investing in an industry-leading training institute to close the cybersecurity skills gap. This combination of technology, services, and training enables SOC professionals to better protect their organizations from detection to incident recovery.”News Summary

News Summary

Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated, and automated cybersecurity solutions, today announced new security operations center (SOC) augmentation services designed to help strengthen an organization’s cyber resiliency and support short-staffed teams strained by the talent shortage. In addition, as part of Fortinet’s leadership efforts to help close the cyber skills gap, the Fortinet Training Institute has added initiatives across its programs to further increase access to its industry-recognized training and certifications.

Cybersecurity Skills Shortage Prompts a New Approach

The prevailing talent shortage remains one of the top challenges facing SOC teams globally. Fortinet’s 2022 Cybersecurity Skills Gap report found that 50% of global leaders cite security operations as one of the most challenging roles to fill, and 42% are still in need of security operations analysts. Additionally, the same Fortinet survey found that worldwide, 80% of organizations suffered one or more breaches due to a lack of cybersecurity skills and awareness.

A lack of resources and personnel, combined with the sheer volume of security alerts SOC teams receive per day, often results in missed detections and slower responses that increase exposure to cyber risk. SOC teams require an immediate solution to mitigate these challenges through investment in automated and integrated SOC and cybersecurity technologies and experienced professionals to better protect against threats.

New and Enhanced SOC Augmentation Services Provide Immediate Support for Short-Staffed Security Operations Teams

Committed to helping organizations overcome these obstacles, Fortinet’s new and enhanced services help SOC teams reduce their organizations’ cyber risk while freeing up their time to focus on higher-priority projects. These updates include:

• SOC-as-a-Service (SOCaaS): Fortinet has expanded its SOCaaS offering, which blends FortiGuard cybersecurity experts with Fortinet advanced SOC technology by adding more artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to additional use cases. These updates enhance the offering’s ability to aggregate security alerts in one single cloud-based dashboard for customers to view actionable intelligence and accelerate resolution, and further enables security operations teams to offload monitoring and detection to Fortinet security experts. With this approach, Fortinet speeds up alert triage, rapidly escalates security incidents, and reduces false-positive alerts for customers.
• Outbreak Detection Service: A new outbreak detection service is available to customers that alerts subscribers through email as well as automatically within key product user interfaces to major breaking cybersecurity events that have the potential for widespread ramifications. These alerts include critical information about security incidents, such as an attack’s timeline of events and what specific technology has been affected. In addition, the alerts also provide organizations with custom threat hunting to run against logs and identify the potential impact of an attack, as well as recommendations to improve their security posture for better protection in the future.
• Incident Response and Readiness (IR&R) Services: Fortinet recently added cybersecurity readiness services as part of its Incident Response offering and shifted the purchasing model to prioritize prevention. By providing a suite of proactive prevention-oriented services, such as risk assessments, playbook development, and tabletop exercises as part of the Incident Response and Readiness Services retainer, organizations can strengthen their cyber preparedness, SOC effectiveness, and reduce cyber risk, while still having access to a team of FortiGuard experts to help with rapid containment and remediation in the event of a cyberattack. In response to an accelerated demand for these services around the globe, Fortinet is also expanding its headcount dedicated to IR&R and SOC automation capabilities to allow more enterprises to have access to the offering.

Expanding Cyber Skills Through the Fortinet Training Institute

While the new and enhanced SOC augmentation services provide immediate relief to strained teams, a long-term investment in continued learning and advancing cyber skills is just as critical to keep up with the ever-changing threat landscape. As part of Fortinet’s longstanding commitment to eliminate the skills gap, the Fortinet Training Institute offers award-winning, multi-level training and certifications to security professionals seeking to advance and upskill their knowledge in key cybersecurity areas. These programs also help untap new talent pools to help build the cyber workforce of the future, with a focus on providing training opportunities for women, veterans, students, and underserved populations. Some recent updates across programs include:

• Increasing Access to Advanced Technical Training: Fortinet has made the practical exam for NSE level 8 more accessible for IT and security professionals everywhere. Both the written and practical portions of the exam are now available in an online, proctored format, making the highest and most elite level of the Network Security Expert (NSE) Certification program more accessible to security professionals around the world.
• Supporting the Advancement of Women Professionals in Cybersecurity: The first women cohort of the Fortinet and Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) bootcamp completed the program, which offered 100 WiCyS members access to Fortinet’s NSE level 4 training and labs for free, technical mentors, exam vouchers, and more. Fortinet has also awarded five of the program participants with scholarships to attend the annual WiCyS Conference March 16–18, where they will have access to cyber leaders and employers.
• Developing Cybersecurity Skills in Youth: To further develop the cyber workforce of the future, Fortinet is sponsoring various cybersecurity-based competitions for students in varying academic levels, ranging from middle school to college. This includes being a platinum sponsor of MITRE Engenuity’s Embedded Capture the Flag (eCTF) 12-week competition and a category sponsor for the Carnegie Mellon Capture the Flag competition.

Through these initiatives, Fortinet is progressing toward the company’s pledge to train 1 million people in cybersecurity by 2026. Additionally, Fortinet’s new and enhanced SOC augmentation services build on its expansive services portfolio backed by FortiGuard Labs. With today’s announcement, Fortinet remains committed to alleviating the challenges associated with the cybersecurity talent shortage by helping organizations better manage cyber risks with ML-driven automation, services, and increased access to training.

Additional Resources

• Learn more about Fortinet’s FortiGuard Security Services portfolio.
• Read more about NSE level 8 practical exams becoming more accessible to security professionals globally in this blog.
• Learn more about FortiGuard Labs threat intelligence and research and Outbreak Alerts, which provide timely steps to mitigate breaking cybersecurity attacks.
• Read more about how security services can help SOC teams enhance and automate critical security functions.
• Read more about how the Fortinet Training Institute is increasing access to cybersecurity training.
• Learn more about Fortinet’s free cybersecurity training, which includes broad cyber awareness and product training. As part of the Fortinet Training Advancement Agenda (TAA), the Fortinet Training Institute also provides training and certification through the Network Security Expert (NSE) Certification, Academic Partner, and Education Outreach programs.
• Read more about how Fortinet customers are securing their organizations.
• Follow Fortinet on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Subscribe to Fortinet on our blog or YouTube.