Fortinet’s 2022 initiatives
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Enterprise IT News recently talked with Fortinet Malaysia’s newly minted country manager, Dickson Woo, about plans and initiatives this year.
EITN: Please share the role of your partner ecosystem on how it supports Fortinet’s growth this year.
Dickson: Fortinet’s channel partners play a critical role in helping Fortinet secure users, devices, applications, and edges everywhere. Fortinet’s growth is closely tied to the partner ecosystem as our Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) and distributors work together to jointly manage many customer organisations, including enterprise and SMB segments.
EITN: Please share what further plans you have for Fortinet this year.
Dickson: In Malaysia, many local organisations are embracing digital innovation. This need was accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when organisations were called to be flexible in how they expect their employees to work. Teleworking and the process of digitisation introduces network complexities and security concerns that local organisations are ill-equipped to handle, which is why many organisations have partnered with MSSPs to help them navigate these new landscapes.
A Cybersecurity Mesh and a platform-centric approach provides the integration that bridges LAN, WAN, data centre and cloud edges.
MSSPs targeting these requirements should consider what Gartner calls a Cybersecurity Mesh featuring tightly integrated tools with unified visibility and control that enable much more holistic capabilities and interoperability than traditional solutions.
A Cybersecurity Mesh and a platform-centric approach provides the integration that bridges LAN, WAN, data centre and cloud edges.
EITN: You mentioned investment into high-skilled resources and subject matter experts – could you elaborate on this and how you actually partner with your customers/partners to co-innovate?
Dickson: Customers need help to address and navigate some of today’s biggest cybersecurity challenges – and this presents an opportunity for Fortinet to grow by enabling our channel partners to have the resources needed to meet customer needs. In 2021, Fortinet launched a refreshed partner program known as Fortinet Engage 2.0 Partner Program address changing market needs.
Firstly, Fortinet has introduced flexible consumption models to partners. More and more customers have been searching for flexible consumption models that can be deployed quickly and at a low cost. The introduction of the new consumption models for Fortinet’s end point solutions enables partners to offer their customers new security services that can meet their needs for flexibility.
Secondly, Fortinet offers specialisations to channel partners including multi-cloud strategies, combining SD-WAN and zero trust architectures, managed detection and response (MDR) and extended detection and response (XDR). Specialisations will allow MSSPs and partners to anticipate trends and proactively offer enhanced security protections that are aligned to customers’ shifting needs. In addition, all of Fortinet’s products and solutions are mesh-ready as they are all supported by the Fortinet Security Fabric, the industry’s highest-performing mesh platform.
More and more customers have been searching for flexible consumption models that can be deployed quickly and at a low cost.
Thirdly, Fortinet focuses on strengthening partners’ competency via the Fortinet Network Security Expert (NSE) Training Institute. Through its series of education and certification programs, the Fortinet NSE Training Institute is committed to training 1 million people by 2025. Designed in a tiered approach – from equipping Fortinet partners with adequate cybersecurity awareness to technical, advanced and expert competencies – the NSE programs and certification ensure all partners are skilled in delivering Fortinet technologies and solutions suite. Given the partners ecosystem is an integral part of Fortinet for scaling outreach to our clients and markets, training and certification are vital to ensure services delivery excellence.
Fortinet is committed to growing the partner ecosystem. The Fortinet Engage Partner Program helps partners develop the expertise needed to deliver digital transformation through customisable programs with business opportunity as well as the programs and infrastructure in place to accelerate their growth.
EITN: In what areas do you see gaps in cybersecurity skills. i.e. areas of skills shortage?
Dickson: There is an almost universal acknowledgement of a skills shortage to combat the increasing threat landscape, especially in the era of COVID-19. We observe a lack of technical skills in the specific areas of developing network security, Zero Trust and operational technology due to the rise in sophisticated cyber attacks.
Recognising the gaps in these much-needed cybersecurity skills, Fortinet has included those topics in the (Network Security Expert) NSE Training Institute to address the skills gap through training and certifications.
In 2021, the Malaysia Cyber Security Strategy (MCSS) and MyDigital confirmed that the talent shortage is evident and widespread, with a requirement of 20,000 individuals by 2025 to support the country’s cybersecurity industry. Cybersecurity education needs to be a strategic priority in the development of human resources for local organisations.
As part of its commitment to invest in the collective future of all Malaysians, Fortinet has partnered with local universities such as Multimedia University to provide IT students with industry-recognised cybersecurity training and certifications.
Cybersecurity education needs to be a strategic priority in the development of human resources for local organisations.
Through the partnerships, Fortinet aims to provide students with in-demand cybersecurity skills to prepare them to become the next generation that fortifies the nation’s digital resilience as cyber attacks rapidly increase.
Cybersecurity professionals and business leaders need to invest in training and developing talent within their organisations, as well as recruit well-qualified cybersecurity professionals. Failure to do so will exacerbate the cybersecurity skills gap.
EITN: Based on highlights of the threat report, what are the best practices you would recommend for clients/businesses?
Dickson: Our FortiGuards Labs Threat Report has highlighted various security risks that organisations need to pay attention to as cyberattacks continued relentlessly into the second half of 2021. Particularly, the sophistication, aggressiveness and impact of ransomware as threat actors continue to attack organisations with new and previously unseen ransomware strains.
Another troubling trend is the use of old ransomware that is being actively updated, enhanced and reused. For example, the ransomware used in the Colonial Pipeline attack, DarkSide, was thought to be a rebranding of BlackMatter and used in multiple attacks targeting infrastructures in the US.
In addition, with the enterprise model of Ransomware-as-as-Service (RaaS), which allows cyber attackers to leverage already-developed ransomware tools to execute ransomware attacks, it is now possible for threat actors to distribute malware more easily.
To combat the rising threat of ransomware, a more unified approach to security is inevitable. By having a wider portfolio of interconnected security and networking technologies, organisations can share threat intelligence, correlate data and automatically respond to threats.
Organisations should look at adopting an integrated security fabric to address the new and complex challenges of ransomware as Malaysia’s digital ecosystem continues to expand.
Gartner® demonstrates this need using the Cybersecurity Mesh Architecture (CSMA), which is defined as an integrated set of security tools and APIs combined with centralised management, analytics, and threat intelligence. According to Gartner, by 2024, organisations that adopt a CSMA strategy to integrate security tools to work as a collaborative ecosystem will reduce the financial impact of individual security incidents by an average of 90 percent.
To combat the rising threat of ransomware, a more unified approach to security is inevitable. By having a wider portfolio of interconnected security and networking technologies, organisations can share threat intelligence, correlate data and automatically respond to threats.
This can be achieved by implementing a single, coordinated system using a unified set of Zero Trust, endpoint, connectivity, cloud and network security solutions.
