Fortinet unveils FortiOS 5.2 to fight APTs

Fortinet unveiled a major update to the FortiOS network security operating system that powers the FortiGate platform at Infosecurity Europe 2014. This release incorporates numerous innovations that strengthen Fortinet’s Advanced Threat Protection Framework, providing enterprises with a cohesive and coordinated way to combat APTs, zero-day attacks and other malware.

This Framework uniquely combines Fortinet’s new and established technologies with FortiGuard’s threat research and response to address increasingly complex cyber threats and reduce the risk of network breach and data loss.

The key elements of Fortinet’s Advanced Threat Protection Framework are:

Access control: Reduces the attack surface by only allowing authorized users to access the network via authorized ports.

Threat prevention: Proactively stops as many attacks as possible by inspecting code, traffic, web sites and applications.

Threat detection: Continues seeking out indicators of compromise in order to identify previously unknown attacks that bypass traditional defenses.

Incident response: Validates and contains incidents with expert security services, as well as automated actions and updates.

Continuous Monitoring: Assesses and improves security posture against individual and industry baselines, while accommodating a rapidly evolving threat environment.

Fortinet’s ATP framework supports the recommendation of Gartner on protection from advanced targeted attacks. Indeed, according to their February 12th, 2014 report, “Designing an Adaptive Security Architecture for Protection from Advanced Attacks,” authors Neil MacDonald and Peter Firstbrook wrote, “All organizations should now assume that they are in a state of continuous compromise.