Expansion of security at the local level | Bangkok Post: tech

UNIFIED THREAT MANAGEMENT

In a bid to strengthen its market base in Thailand, Fortinet has addressed the strategy of adopting a more ''local touch'' by offering maintenance services at the distribution channel and expanding to the upcountry market.

Peerapong Jongvibool.

According to Fortinet (Thailand) country manager Peerapong Jongvibool, the single security trend, including firewalls, anti-virus software and intrusion prevention (IPS), has been declining, while unified threat management (UTM) is growing because of the increasingly varied requirements of users.

''This is why Fortinet is growing every year and we are the leader of UTM market worldwide,'' he said, adding that Fortinet's systems integrate the industry's broadest suite of security technologies, including firewalls, VPN, antivirus, (IPS), web filtering, anti-spam and traffic shaping _ all of which can be deployed individually to complement legacy solutions or combined for a comprehensive threat management solution.

The company complements these solutions with an array of management, analysis, e-mail, database and end-point security products.

The company's flagship FortiGate security platforms offer a powerful blend of ASIC-accelerated performance, integrated multi-threat response, and constantly-updated, in-depth threat intelligence, employing innovative tech nologies for networking, security and content analysis,

Fortinet's custom-built FortiASIC content and network processors enable FortiGate systems to detect and eliminate even complex, blended threats in real time without degrading network performance, while an extensive set of complementary management, analysis, database and endpoint protection solutions increase deployment flexibility, assist in compliance with industry and government regulations, and reduce the costs of security management.

Peerapong said the company will expand the provincial market through its new structure of strategic partners and users by working with the government sector in operating training centres.

The company has adjusted its structure support to have the local touch by having the distributor run the Repair Maintenance Agreement (RMA), responsible for repairing and replacing products.

Meanwhile, the strategic partners (of the present 30 resellers) have provided technical support to strategic accounts.

Service providers need to be more concerned with security issues, Peerapong said. He added that the rapid growth of social networks raises privacy worries, however security concern for users might be not as great as they are for service providers, and threat prevention can be carried out at the core applications of the service providers.

He added that cloud computing poses an additional threat concern.

When using cloud-based collaboration tools, data is often downloaded to desktops, where it is manipulated, and then returned to the cloud for further collaboration.

If these desktops are compromised with malware, it is possible that downloading and manipulating data could infect it and returning it to the cloud could cause the spread of malware.

Fortinet offers solace with its ability to inspect both inbound and outbound content, including encrypted files, ensuring that any potentially dangerous data will be identified and scrubbed from the network before it reaches the end-user's system.

However, he said the target users are likely to change, from corporate to the service providers, and so the security of cloud application will be mainly aimed at the service providers.