Analyst Validation
“Modern IT and employee environments are highly distributed and require secure connectivity and access, regardless of where users or applications are located. To provide these services, organizations must have comprehensive, tightly integrated, network and security solutions. Fortinet understands this and has implemented a single OS and agent across its entire Cloud-based SASE portfolio, plus it has layered in AI/ML technologies to drive greater operational efficiencies and deliver enhanced user experiences.”
– Bob Laliberte, Principal Analyst, ESG

Discuss the risk management potential of FortiCNP

FortiCNP is a cloud-native protection platform natively integrated with cloud service providers’ (CSP) security services and Fortinet’s security fabric to deliver a comprehensive, full-stack cloud security solution for securing cloud workloads.

FortiCNP delivers the following features that allow security teams to effectively manage risk in the cloud:

FortiCNP resource risk insights (RRI) leverages a patented risk score algorithm to contextualize security findings from Fortinet cloud security solutions and AWS products and services to provide teams with prioritized, context-rich, and actionable insights about resources that present the highest risk and need immediate attention.

Alain Penel, VP – Middle East and Turkey at Fortinet

Integrations with Amazon GuardDuty malware protection leverage a zero-permission, agentless approach for detecting malware throughout the data supply chain by scanning cloud data stores, disk volumes, and workload images.

For customers utilizing Fortinet cloud security solutions such as FortiGate-VM and FortiWeb, RRIs will be able to trigger stopgap remediations to block high-impact threats.

FortiCNP continuously scans and monitors changes to cloud data with industry-leading threat intelligence and content scanning powered by FortiGuard Labs.

What advice does Fortinet want to give the Middle East enterprises to safeguard their business from cyber threats?

Organizations need security operations that can function at machine speed to keep up with the volume, sophistication, and speed of today’s cyber threats. AI and ML-powered prevention, detection, and response strategies based on a cybersecurity mesh architecture allow for much tighter integration, increased automation, as well as a more rapid, coordinated, and effective response to threats across the extended network.

Cybersecurity awareness and training are also important as the threat landscape changes to keep employees and security teams up to date.

Tell us about the products you’re presenting at GITEX 2022

Our focus at GITEX this year is to showcase our cybersecurity mesh platform which gives businesses a broad, integrated, centralized management and visibility, supports, and interoperates across a vast ecosystem of solutions, and automatically adapts to dynamic changes in the network. Our portfolio of more than 50 security and networking technologies is designed from the ground up to interoperate, sharing threat intelligence, correlating data, and automatically responding to threats as a single, coordinated system.

On site, visitors will experience the key pillars of the Fortinet Security Fabric such as the Zero-trust network which securely connects applications hosted everywhere with users working from anywhere;  Security operations which enables fast, coordinated detection and enforcement across the entire attack surface; Network security which addresses digital acceleration challenges by tightly integrating network infrastructure with advanced security across all edges; and cloud security which delivers visibility and control across cloud infrastructures.

How well have you optimized your regional strategies ahead of GITEX and what are your plans for 2023?

security will become a larger share of the networking market and Fortinet is well-positioned to continue to meet the needs of organizations looking to enable digital acceleration through convergence. New advanced solutions, such as AIOps, integrated zero-trust network access (ZTNA) and identity, zero-trust, and AI-enhanced outbreak detection, are only possible because Fortinet has converged critical security and network functions into a single, expansive platform.

“Without the proper tools, security professionals must manually sift through hundreds, if not thousands, of security alerts daily,” said Doug Cahill, Vice President, Analyst Services and Senior Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG).

Jon Ramsey, Vice President (VP) AWS Security, “security partners like Fortinet with their FortiCNP offering built on AWS and integrated with our security services like Amazon GuardDuty give customers a choice to simplify and accelerate their cloud journey with cloud-native security services.”

The following are the key features of FortiCNP:

• FortiCNP Resource Risk Insights (RRI)TM leverages a patented risk score algorithm to contextualize security findings from Fortinet Cloud Security solutions and AWS products and services to provide teams with prioritized, context-rich, and actionable insights about resources that present the highest risk and need immediate attention.
• By analyzing, correlating, and contextualizing security findings from AWS cloud security services with FortiCNP, customers maximize the value and benefit from easy deployment capabilities offered by Amazon GuardDuty Malware Protection, Amazon Inspector, and AWS Security Hub, AWS CloudTrail, and AWS Organizations.
• Integrations with Amazon GuardDuty Malware Protection leverage a zero-permission, agentless approach for detecting malware throughout the data supply chain by scanning cloud data stores, disk volumes, and workload images.
• Integrations with digital workflow solutions turn FortiCNP RRIs into intuitively actionable workflow tasks as part of the cloud infrastructure lifecycle.

Speak about Fortinet’s capacities to offer comprehensive protection for enterprises in times of rising cyber attacks

To fight today’s evolving threats, organizations should look into a security platform based on a cybersecurity mesh architecture with security solutions that are designed to work together. A cybersecurity mesh architecture integrates security controls into, and across, widely distributed networks and assets. Defenders will need to plan now by leveraging the power of AI and machine learning (ML) to speed threat prevention, detection, and response. Advanced endpoint technologies like endpoint detection and response (EDR) can help to identify malicious threats based on behavior. Also, zero-trust network access (ZTNA) will be critical for secure application access to extend protections to mobile workers and learners, while Secure SD-WAN is important to protect evolving WAN edges.

Alain Penel, Regional Vice President – ME at Fortinet

Together with the Fortinet Security Fabric, organizations can benefit from an integrated security platform that secures all assets on-premises, in the data center, and in the cloud or at the edge.

What advice do you give to enterprises to secure their network and reduce vulnerabilities?

Today’s threat environment is constantly changing, and from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to ransomware, the frequency, volume, and sophistication of cyberattacks show no signs of slowing down. Every organization, from small businesses to the largest enterprises and service providers, in every industry, requires network security to protect critical assets and infrastructure from a rapidly expanding attack surface.

Organizations need to develop a Security-driven Networking strategy that tightly integrates an organization’s network infrastructure and security architecture, enabling the network to scale and change without compromising security operations. This next-generation approach is essential for effectively defending today’s highly dynamic environments – not only by providing consistent enforcement across today’s highly flexible perimeters but by also weaving security deep into the network itself.

SMEs face large-scale cyber threats than large enterprises. How can they defend their physical and cloud networks? What are the solutions Fortinet offers to them in order to protect their digital ecosystem?

SMEs struggle to implement strong, holistic security across their business for a variety of reasons and too often rely on piecemeal security cobbled together with multiple vendors’ point products that do not operate cohesively. Ultimately, this results in inflated costs and stagnating growth, as investing in technology that would help the business be more productive is delayed by security. Cybersecurity for SMEs must therefore be simple, cost-effective, and easy to deploy.

Fortinet’s small and mid-size business security solutions deliver a path to complete protection. Clear ROI is delivered without sacrificing security with tight integration, automation, and visibility across the entire cybersecurity footprint to improve effectiveness, reduce cycles, and scale as the company grows. Cloud-based, centralized management simplifies ongoing operations with business-driven rules and policies so businesses can quickly consume new technology while keeping the business safe from attack.

Give insights into the partner collaboration Fortinet has made globally in the last two years

Fortinet is committed to helping partners be able to meet new and changing customer demands created by the work-from-anywhere models through Fortinet’s Engage Partner Program and enablement tools for partners.

As an example, last year Fortinet introduced new Specializations focused on high growth areas with additions, including “zero trust” access, operational technology, and security operations. Specializations help partners further distinguish their expertise among current and potential customers as trusted partners who have the knowledge, services, and technologies to fulfill customer business needs.

Elaborate on Fortinet’s business strategies in the Middle East?

In the region, we see strong interest in secure SD-WAN, cloud, and OT areas. By transforming their WAN architectures with SD-WAN, organizations can leverage such functions as dynamic path selection, optimized application delivery, and accelerated cloud on-ramp to deliver business-critical applications to the WAN edge – even for the most bandwidth-hungry applications – all while delivering instant ROI benefits. A secure SD-WAN solution goes further as it also includes a full stack of integrated, enterprise-class security features, and centralized management so it can be seamlessly incorporated into the larger corporate security framework. In 2021, we saw many attacks on critical infrastructure. Attacks against OT systems and critical infrastructure can have dire consequences for the lives and safety of both workers and consumers. OT organizations need to deploy cohesive solutions across their converging IT and OT networks. A platform approach is essential for OT organizations since their security considerations must extend beyond the on-premises system. Now they also must cover the operating system, the network infrastructure, and take the increased dependence on enabled Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices into account as well. Cybercriminals certainly aren’t going to let up in 2022. As digital innovation accelerates, organizations are increasingly reliant on secure cloud solutions and infrastructures. Fortinet Adaptive Cloud Security Solutions provide the necessary visibility and control across cloud infrastructures, enabling secure applications and connectivity from the data center to the cloud.

How do you react to the increasing competition in the security solutions market?

Competing in today’s highly dynamic digital marketplace requires tools built around security-driven Networking principles that are designed to adapt to constantly changing requirements. We tightly integrate security with networking and connectivity solutions to ensure that even the most dynamic environments and edges are always protected. By weaving security and networking together, security no longer functions as an overlay.

Enterprises need more than siloed solutions in today’s complex environment. This is why the Fortinet Security Fabric is the answer to their security challenges: it ensures that solutions deployed anywhere, regardless of their form factor or the network they run on, can see each other, share threat intelligence, and coordinate a unified response to threats. It supports our unique security-driven networking approach that blends security, networking, and connectivity into a unified solution. Our advances in AI-based security technology are woven into the Security Fabric, helping ensure that organizations can receive essential, actionable threat intelligence, identify, and investigate unusual behavior, and coordinate a unified response across the entire distributed network to neutralize threats in seconds.

Written by: Joe Robertson, Director of information security and EMEA CISO at Fortinet

Digitization is transforming how businesses operate. This transition is often referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 because it represents the fourth manufacturing revolution. The first industrial revolution was mechanization, the second was mass production and assembly lines using electricity, and the third was the adoption of computers and automation.

Joe Robertson, Director of information security at Fortinet

Now the Fourth Industrial Revolution is upon us, with the digital transformation of businesses largely consisting of automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and rapid technological innovation. Industrial processes and machines are becoming smarter and more modular, with automation and data exchange that include the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). These smart, always-connected devices provide real-time contextual information with low overhead to optimize processes and improve how companies and individuals interact, work, and live.

It’s no wonder McKinsey estimated that investments in IoT technology would grow at a rate of 13.5% throughout 2022. This growth in IoT is contributing to an escalating explosion in production and industrial data. This data is being collected and analyzed to improve productivity, monitor activity, and enhance predictive maintenance. With so much business-critical data passing through IoT and IIoT devices, organizations must take measures to secure their technology.

Why is IIoT Security Important?

Digital has not gone unnoticed by cybercriminals, who seek to exploit IoT and IIoT as weak links in the data chain. The increasing volume of structured and unstructured data being generated by these devices, and their oftentimes anomalous behavior spanning across global ecosystems challenges even the best organizations. Further complicating the situation is that many of these devices are wireless (WLAN or 5G) and often have communication channels to their manufacturers for maintenance and troubleshooting purposes, which can make them a potential backdoor into the production network.

Most organizations are not well prepared for IoT and IIoT device vulnerabilities. The ubiquitous interconnectivity among devices, users, and distributed networks presents a substantial challenge for traditional siloed security solutions. Focusing defenses on a single point in the network is becoming increasingly ineffective. The lack of single-view visibility across devices, users, and the entire network creates blind spots that cybercriminals can exploit. According to a study conducted by EY, almost half of enterprises indicate they are concerned about their inability to track security across their IoT and IIoT assets, keep them virus-free, and patch vulnerabilities. This complexity is exacerbated by comingling IIoT devices with wired devices on the same network segments and can lead to uncertainty as to exactly what is connected where.

IoT and IIoT Security Risks to Be Aware Of

From a security perspective, IoT and IIoT devices present several risks. One problem is that most of these devices were not designed with security in mind. Many of them are headless, which means they do not have a traditional operating system or even the memory or processing power required to include security or install a security client. In addition, an alarming number of devices have passwords hard-coded into their firmware.

The result is that many IoT devices cannot be patched or updated. And even when security can be installed on the device, the underlying installed software is often cobbled together from commonly available code or is untested, which means that most installed security tools can be circumvented by exploiting a wide range of known vulnerabilities. Additionally, most IIoT and IoT devices have limited or no configurability. And when devices are compromised, most IT organizations admit they are unlikely to be able to detect the event before it impacts systems and data.

How to Mitigate IoT and IIoT Security Risks

It is important to view IIoT as part of your broader security environment rather than as isolated units. Here are a few additional recommendations for securing this technology:

• Segmentation of the production environment, with all IIoT and wireless devices in segments outside of the SCADA or ICS network. In many cases, micro-segmentation should be performed to further restrict communications between devices to further isolate and confine them to only authorized communications.
• Network Access Control for accurate information on what is connecting to the network and verification of each device’s security posture before allowing it to connect.
• Security must be redesigned to provide seamless visibility on what is happening across all networks and devices, from IoT to multi-cloud networks.
• Because of the minimal intelligence and security functions included in most IIoT devices, an Intrusion Protection System upstream of these devices should be used to detect attacks on known exploits and to provide “virtual patching” of devices that cannot have software updates applied.
• Security monitoring and management must be done through a single console. Enterprises must be able to see all devices, assess risk levels, segment traffic, and assign policies across the entire network in real-time. This should include both production and IT networks to reduce the risk of attacks on IT resources propagating into the production network, and vice-versa.
• Active protection solutions against unknown threats should be deployed, including sandboxing technology (to determine if files, attachments, or other code is malicious or not), and deception technology, (also known as honey pots), to attract attackers, confirm their presence in the network, and expose them to tools to block and eliminate them.
• Zero trust access can provide simple, automatic secure remote access that verifies who and what is on your network and secures application access no matter where users are located.
• Security solutions should automatically adapt to network changes, anticipate threats, interpret and implement business language commands, and interoperate in a cybersecurity mesh architecture to share threat intelligence and proactively coordinate responses to threats across all security devices and network ecosystems.

Going Forward

Unfortunately, IIoT devices are typically not designed with security in mind, and finding ways to secure every device on your network is daunting. Because of this, organizations must take immediate action to protect their systems from attack.

A new generation of tools is helping organizations meet today’s ever-expanding attack surface, delivering not only visibility of the network environment, but also enforcement and dynamic policy control. Whether devices are connecting from inside or outside the network, they can automatically respond to compromised devices or anomalous activity.

Fortinet has developed products, services, and tools that directly meet the operational and regulatory requirements of industrial and manufacturing networks. The expansive Fortinet Security Fabric platform offers a cybersecurity mesh architecture approach that includes centralized management and a unified context-aware security policy that provides complete visibility and granular control over the entire organization.

To better meet compliance requirements, mitigate chances of data leaks, keep students safe on the web, and preserve LLM’s reputation and credibility, the school decided to improve its security infrastructure to keep up with the increase in the volume of threats and the sophisticated cyber threat landscape.

“Education institutions are amongst the most targeted sectors by cybercriminals, owning to several key factors caused by things like cost constraints, overburdened IT team, and legacy systems,” said Alain Penel, Regional Vice President – Middle East, Fortinet.

Fortinet Security Fabric approach claims to have combined protection across the entire attack surface and cycle with unified management and orchestration, market-leading AI-powered security services, granular control, and centralized compliance capabilities. FortiGate next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) supporting secure sockets layer (SSL) inspection (including TLS1.3), with natively integrated FortiGuard cloud-delivered web filtering, and advanced intrusion prevention (IPS)were deployed in the LLM infrastructure, reducing complexity by consolidating multiple point products into one Security Fabric.

“Our former solution was unstable and incapable of blocking inappropriate websites,” says Christope Hammami, IT Manager at Lycée Louis Massignon.

“Right after the implementation was completed, we have experienced unified management and ease of operation. In more general terms, we have much more confidence in our security infrastructure. Fortinet’s team was supportive and attentive to understand our pain points and recommend the best solutions,” concludes Christope Hammami, IT Manager at LLM.

A FortiGuard Labs Threat Landscape Report demonstrated an increase in the volume and sophistication of attacks targeting individuals, organizations, and increasingly critical infrastructure. Organizations are looking for solutions to protect against these evolving threats and zero trust is top of mind, but for multiple reasons.  Additionally, the shift to work-from-anywhere has put a spotlight on zero-trust network access (ZTNA) in particular, as organizations need to protect important assets from workers connecting from poorly protected home networks.

John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet articulates, “with the evolving threat landscape, transition to work-from-anywhere, and the need to securely manage applications in the cloud, the shift from implicit trust to zero trust is top of mind for organizations. Our survey shows while most organizations have some form of a zero-trust strategy in place, they fall short of a holistic strategy and struggle to implement some core zero-trust security basics. An effective solution requires a cybersecurity mesh platform approach to address all zero-trust fundamentals across the infrastructure, including endpoint, cloud, and on-premises, otherwise, the result is a partial, non-integrated solution that lacks broad visibility.”

John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet

Confusion Over Defining Zero-Trust Strategies

The report illustrates some confusion about what comprises a complete zero-trust strategy. Respondents indicated they understand zero trust (77%) and ZTNA (75%) concepts and over 80% reported already having a zero-trust and/or ZTNA strategy in place or development. Yet, over 50% indicated being unable to implement core zero-trust capabilities. Nearly 60% indicated they cannot authenticate users and devices on an ongoing basis and 54% struggle to monitor users post-authentication.

This gap is concerning because these functions are critical tenets of zero-trust and it brings into question what the actual reality of these implementations is across organizations. Adding to the confusion are the terms “Zero Trust Access” and “Zero Trust Network Access,” which are used sometimes interchangeably.

Zero Trust Is Top of Mind and Priorities Are Varied

Priorities for zero trust are “minimizing the impact of breaches and intrusions” followed closely by “securing remote access” and “ensuring business or mission continuity.” “Improving user experiences” and “gaining the flexibility to provide security anywhere” were also top priorities.

“Security across the entire digital attack surface” was the single most important benefit cited by respondents, followed by a “better user experience for remote work (VPN).”

A vast majority of the survey respondents believe that it is vital for zero-trust security solutions to be integrated with their existing infrastructure, work across cloud and on-premises environments, and be secure at the application layer. However, more than 80% of respondents indicated that it is challenging to implement a zero-trust strategy across an extended network. For organizations without a strategy in place or development, obstacles included a lack of skilled resources with 35% of organizations using other IT strategies to address zero trust.

About the Zero-Trust Report:

The report is based on a global survey of IT decision-makers aimed at better understanding how far along organizations are in their zero-trust journey. The survey is intended to better understand the following:

• How well zero trust and ZTNA are understood
• The perceived benefits and challenges in implementing a zero-trust strategy
• Adoption of and the elements included in a zero-trust strategy

The survey was conducted in September 2021 with 472 IT and security leaders from 24 different countries, representing nearly all industries, including the public sector.

Additional Resources

• Read the blog for valuable takeaways from this survey or access the full report
• Learn about how to better secure access for remote users to applications anywhere with Fortinet Zero Trust Network Access
• Learn more about how the Zero Trust Education Pathway including certifications from the Fortinet NSE Institute can help you navigate the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to grow your career in Zero Trust Access
• Watch how Fortinet makes possible a digital world you can always trust, and view how the Fortinet Security Fabric platform delivers broad, integrated, and automated protection across an organization’s entire digital infrastructure
• Read more about how Fortinet customers are securing their organizations
• Engage in the Fortinet User Community (Fuse). Share ideas and feedback, learn more about our products and technology and connect with peers
• Follow Fortinet on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Subscribe to Fortinet on YouTube

Following are the highlights of the prediction report made by FortiGuard Labs:

• Ransomware will get more destructive: There will continue to be a crimeware expansion and ransomware will remain a focus going forward. Ransomware attacks could be a concern for emerging edge environments, critical infrastructure, and supply chains.
• Cybercriminals use ai to master deep fakes: Cybercriminals are also leveraging AI to thwart the complicated algorithms used to detect their abnormal activity. Going forward, this will evolve as deep fakes become a growing concern because they leverage AI to mimic human activities and can be used to enhance social engineering attacks.
• More attacks against lesser targeted systems in the supply chain: In many networks, Linux runs many of the back-end computing systems, and until recently, it has not been a primary target of the cybercriminal community. Recently, new malicious binaries have been detected targeting Microsoft’s WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). This further expands the attack surface into the core of the network and increases the threats that need to be defended in general. This has ramifications for operational technology (OT) devices and supply chains in general that run on Linux platforms.
• Cybercrime targets space: FortiGuard Labs expects to see new proof-of-concept (POC) threats targeting satellite networks over the next year as satellite-based internet access continues to grow. The biggest targets will be organizations that rely on satellite-based connectivity to support low-latency activities, such as online gaming or delivering critical services to remote locations, as well as remote field offices, pipelines, or cruises and airlines.
• Cybercriminals thrive living off the land at the edge: A new edge-based threat is emerging. Edge malware could monitor edge activities and data and then steal, hijack, or even ransom critical systems, applications, and information while avoiding being detected.

Fighting cybercrime is a collaborative effort, with cybersecurity experts, law enforcement, and policymakers teaming up with industries and the public to fight the war on cybercrime. Most people will agree that combatting cybercrime is critical to our society’s digital and structural health, so the opportunity to help has always been there. However, those bad actors know cybercrime is a trillion-dollar business, and the odds of getting caught are low since cybercrime overall has no borders as countries do.

As today’s cyberthreats become more sophisticated and aggressive, with ransomware attacks moving to an affiliate-based, as-a-service model, working together is the only way to get ahead of it. Interestingly, according to a Fortinet ransomware survey, ransomware has become a top threat concern for global organizations. This is just one threat type. Recent episodes have caused massive supply chain infections from just a single intrusion point.

Derek Manky, Chief, Security Insights & Global Threat Alliances at Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs

And cybercriminals are becoming more well-funded the more advanced they become, with growing business models and supply chains of their own. So how do we create action and execute on the knowledge we’ve amassed studying cybercrime? Simply nodding in agreement is just not enough. Goodwill is one thing, but the time to act is now. The answer is by working together with global partners to raise resiliency, disrupt, and ultimately take down these criminal empires.

A Needle in a Haystack

Cybercrime is now a criminal empire that functions like any other criminal organization, with bosses, managers, and money mules. But the world of cybercrime is a bit more complicated. Take, for example, the number one reason these adversaries don’t get caught: jurisdiction. Many cybercriminals operate from countries that don’t extradite to the U.S., making it harder to pinpoint them, let alone find, charge, and prosecute them.

There is a ton of data around ransomware and other types of cybercrime. Still, accurate data on the number of incidents is hard to come by because a large percentage of victims don’t even report their cases. Even though there have been some big, successful takedowns recently, less than 0.05% of cybercriminals are arrested and prosecuted. And the bad guys like those odds. This giant cybercrime enforcement gap gives bad actors the confidence to continue without fear of being caught, charged, or punished. The cybercrime supply chain has exploded, and there are so many moving parts and participants at the ready at each point that it takes concerted, global, collaborative efforts to track them all down and stop them.

A Collaborative Effort

Our mission at FortiGuard Labs is to provide Fortinet customers with the industry’s best threat intelligence to protect them from malicious activity and sophisticated cyber-attacks. But we don’t stop at protecting our customers—Fortinet is actively engaged with and has bi-directional threat intelligence–feed relationships with more than 200 partners. These partnerships are vital to providing increased visibility to FortiGuard Labs’ operations. They include threat-intelligence peers, national community emergency response teams (CERTs), computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs), government agencies, international law enforcement organizations (including NATO and INTERPOL), and other critical partners such as MITRE and the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity.

Fortinet also belongs to INTERPOL ICGEG (Global Expert Group), and we work with the FBI to help counter cybercrime and cyber-terrorism. (We were one of several private sector companies that provided support to an INTERPOL-led operation targeting cybercrime across the ASEAN region.)

We are increasing our efforts and focus to go beyond our own research to lead, interact, share, and foster the sharing of actionable threat intelligence. For example, Fortinet co-founded the Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA). Today, the CTA organization has grown from four founding members to actively bring threat researchers, security vendors, and alliance partners together to share threat information and improve defenses against advanced cyber adversaries across member organizations and their customers. The goal of the CTA is to disrupt cybercrime and attacks by raising resiliency—the more we share, the better equipped we will all be to fight the war on cybercrime.

Fortinet is also a founding member of and supports multiple initiatives for the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Centre for Cybersecurity, holding one of only two permanent seats on this international council. The Centre for Cybersecurity was designed to shape the future of cybersecurity and digital trust worldwide, safeguard innovation, protect institutions, businesses, and individuals, and secure our growing reliance on the digital economy.

Fighting the Good Fight

The main goals of the Centre for Cybersecurity are to:

• Build cyber resilience by developing and scaling forward-looking solutions and promoting effective practices across digital ecosystems
• Strengthen global cooperation among public and private stakeholders by fostering a collective response to cybercrime and jointly addressing key security challenges
• Understand future networks and technology to identify and prepare for future cybersecurity challenges and opportunities

In addition, the Partnership Against Cybercrime brings together a dedicated community including leading law enforcement agencies, international organizations, cybersecurity companies, service and platform providers, global corporations, and leading not-for-profit alliances. Following the 2020 Working Group recommendations, the Partnership will support the establishment of a global network of hubs for operational public-private cooperation. The Partnership will serve as the platform for interactions and insight sharing on a global and strategic level.

Other actionable insights gleaned from Fortinet’s participation in the first INTERPOL High-Level Forum on Ransomware are to:

• Prevent ransomware by raising awareness, partnerships, and information sharing
• Aim for pre-exploit disruption of ransomware and its ecosystem through global law enforcement actions both reactively and proactively
• Provide in-event emergency support against ransomware attacks
• Ensure post-event support following ransomware attacks to increase resilience, agility, and responsiveness

Good News

In cybersecurity, not every action has an immediate or lasting effect, but several events in 2021 show positive developments specifically for defenders. Aligning forces through collaboration is being prioritized to disrupt cybercriminal supply chains. Shared data and partnership can enable more effective responses and better predict future techniques to deter adversary efforts. Some results of this cooperation were the coordinated takedown of Emotet, one of the most prolific malware operations in recent history, and the disruption of the Egregor, NetWalker, and Cl0p ransomware operations which represent significant wins by global governments and law enforcement to curb cybercrime. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a strong message when they charged a NetWalker affiliate. Recently, two ransomware operators were arrested in Ukraine. FortiGuard Labs’ data showed a slowdown of threat activity following the Emotet takedown. Activity related to TrickBot and Ryuk variants persisted after the Emotet botnet was taken offline, but it was at a reduced volume.

It may sometimes seem like cybercriminals have the upper hand because their criminal empire has become so large and unruly that it’s becoming harder to contain it. However, efforts are paying off. Cybersecurity is a long game, and not all actions have an immediate effect. But increasing pressure from critical voices is having an impact.

Hello Mr. Aman! I want to formally thank you for giving us an interview for the October edition of The Integrator and sparing time for this face-to-face interaction. Hope you had excellent interactions with potential customers at the GITEX.

The COVID-19 pandemic seemingly shifted the professional landscape of work and collaboration. How do you react to it?

I think even the work culture started to change well before the pandemic. Solutions that accommodate office and remote work have been in development for a while now. A high percentage the US workforce wanted to work remotely and such demands were normalized even before the pandemic hit. However, business continuity plans of the companies after COVID-19 hit accelerated the need for remote working solutions, increased discussions on cyber security, and significantly blurred the line between consumer and enterprise, across the globe.

So, I think it isn’t going to be any different globally even if companies abstain work from home because everyone is moving towards a hybrid way of working. The biggest challenge then for all enterprises is the edges moved from the office, from the corporate network in the corporate offices to homes.

Amanulla Khan, Managing Director of Linksys Middle East, Turkey & Africa

What you need is a unique network which provides you the performance, and access to all the resources, which are available in the corporate network, and it needs to be secured. So, security becomes a big concern as vulnerabilities increase. For example, if you have 200 branches at different locations, with 200 people working at different times, instead of having 20 branch offices, where everyone works at the same schedule.

Tell us about Linksys’ latest product HomeWRK that features remote work

HomeWRK is our first product, launched recently and that is secured by Fortinet. We are scaling it up for today’s enterprise needs to offer enterprise grade security and performance to working from home.

Do you have a strategic partnership with any video collaboration tools?

We are giving users the flexibility to prioritize the collaboration tool that they are using. Whether it is zoom or Microsoft Teams, or RingCentral, the user should be able to securely connect and collaborate. The HomeWRK device will be able to connect to multiple operational devices, such as mobile and computer, tablet, wearables, etc. for work or study purposes. There will be consistent speed ensured for each device.

The firewall, part of HomeWRK, will connect straight into the corporate network or enterprise network without having to connect to a VPN. It creates a tunnel that will be fully secured and this part of the network is fully managed through the company corporate IT team. Fundamentally, the enterprise network will be away from cyberthreats while each member at home access different things through the home network.

The major context of our discussion was security, Is Linksys aiming to enter an industry where critical operations (finance, bank, healthcare, security, etc.) take place?

Securing networks is probably the life solution for some enterprises, especially in spaces of finance, healthcare, banks, etc. For all these verticals, there is no better player and no better partner than Fortinet to secure networks.

We are partnered with Fortinet to secure our products and continue interacting with enterprises of all of these verticals. We educate customers on how well we secure our products and their networks and see business opportunities in doing it.