The world is moving fast; so fast that we are not developing solutions fast enough to counter discrepancies in technology that we created in the process.
These IT discrepancies are a direct result of the fact that we keep adding elements to our environment that have their own version of security, which does not communicate with other security in your network. Having to jump through so many hoops, we lengthen the discovery time of cyber threats significantly – the average discovery time of a security breach is 8 months.
Enter Fortinet. Fortinet is a security solutions developer that we have partnered up with and of whom you will be hearing a lot about from our team.
The hottest item on their menu at this moment is the Fortinet Security Fabric: a product designed to bring all of your security systems together into one unified net. The Fabric basically conditions communication between the various departments of your network.
The Fabric
Fortinet describes the Fabric in 5 words: scalable, aware, secure, actionable, open.
Scalable: the Fabric evolves alongside your network.
Aware: leaves no room for miscommunication between the moving pieces of your network to identify threats fast.
Secure: stays up to date by combining the ability to evolve with your network and an ever-growing database of solutions.
Actionable: with a database that is constantly growing, solutions are right at the surface.
Open: can be integrated with certain other security solutions.
To better illustrate the advantages of the fabric as opposed to several separate security systems, Fortinet outlines the Threat Cycle.
The Threat Cycle
Not all threats are the same, but there is a pattern that they follow. Fortinet divides the cycle into 4 Ps.
Prepare: and assessment of your network is made.
Penetrate: a Rootkit is applied.
Persist: the Rootkit works in the background.
Propagate: virus expands to other areas of your network.
The Fabric combats each of the 4 stages at any point in the cycle. How? It categorizes your network into sectors and opens communication channels between them; once one sector flags an issue, all other sectors are notified, giving your network the opportunity to protect itself. Often, security fails when parts of your network are not able to communicate well, which is why the goal of the Fabric is to unify security in your network.
The Solution
The Fabric takes 4 steps in dealing with any threat.
Step 1: Prepare
The Fabric, as mentioned, first logically divides your network into sectors; similarly, it identifies all assets in the network – whether users or devices – to categorize them into security groups. Ultimately, it identifies the relationship between all of these moving parts of your network, which condition the creation of a solid plan of action.
Second, using these background processes, the Fabric seeks to train and prepare users for possible threats. For the Fabric to cover efficiently, users within the network must be made aware of the hottest threats on the market.
Step 2: Prevent
By dividing assets into security groups, the Fabric creates a tightly layered access system, where devices, users, applications etc. and their interaction are monitored accordingly. It also invests extensively in fortifying the vulnerable points in your network: peripheral devices.
Step 3: Detect
As shown in the Threat Cycle, cybercriminals often stay dormant to survey your network and locate important data as well as weak spots. To ruin any unpleasant surprises, the Fabric gives you a detailed panoramic view of your network at all times in addition to putting a firewall on all interaction within the network.
Step 4: Respond
The Fabric not only responds to threats, but it does not forget about them. To illustrate: FortiSandbox, one of many ever-evolving layers in the Fabric, looks for unknown threats. Once found and quarantined, FortiLabs adds it to the database. Thus, the Fabric clears your network and uses that data to fortify your security.
Following this tiered approach, the Fabric secures your network from the inner core to the outer core (cloud) of your network and everything in-between.
We know that you are now concerned about your network’s security, so we propose to do a free network assessment of your network under Fortinet’s Cyber Threat Assessment Program. Interested? Click here to fill out the form.
The sum of FortiGuard’s assessments:
Every minute you are vulnerable to: 21,000 Spam emails, 390,000 network attempts, 460,000 Malware programs, 160,000 malicious website access, 50,000 Botnet attempts.
Fortiguard’s weekly output: 46 million new and updated Spam rules, 1.8 million new and updated AV definitions, 1.4 million new URL ratings, 8,000 of research globally.
Full Fortinet white paper on the Fortinet Security Fabric can be found here.
