Fortinet welcomes three OT specialist firms into its Technology Alliance and Fabric-Ready Partner ecosystem to expand the range of solutions available for OT customers.
Fortinet just announced new additions to its fabric-ready partner ecosystem. Long-standing fabric-ready partner Nozomi Networks is joined by three new operational technology partners: RAD, Indegy and SecurityMatters. This is 'to protect the emerging cyber-physical domain via the Fortinet Security Fabric', the press release states.
“As OT networks embrace digital transformation, and physical and cyber domains continue to converge, sensitive production environments and critical infrastructures are increasingly being exposed to cyber risks. Fortinet is committed to protecting crucial and sensitive OT environments through the integrated power of the Fortinet Security Fabric, which includes advanced and specialized protections provided by our growing number of Fabric-Ready Partners.” - John Maddison, SVP of products and solutions at Fortinet
Deep Packet Inspection and Contextual Analysis capabilities added
As a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cyber security solutions, Fortinet announced the expansion of its Technology Alliances ecosystem today. It will now include four operational technology specialists. Fortinet welcomes these three new specialists to expand the range of solutions available for OT customers. The three new OT security specialists are RAD, Indegy and SecurityMatters. Together with Nozomi Networks, they provide advanced visibility into the OT-specific commands and protocols to secure the emerging cyber-physical domain of OT networks. These partners enhance the OT-specific capabilities within Fortinet’s portfolio by adding deep packet inspection and contextual analysis capabilities to Fortinet’s OT vulnerability scanning and policy enforcement. The FortiGuard Industrial Security Service still continuously updates signatures to identify and police most of the common ICS/SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) protocols for granular visibility and control.
IIoT, digital transformation and OT security challenges
The OT industry is being impacted by convergence and digital transformation. As physical and IT networks continue to integrate, including those in critical infrastructures and industrial automation companies, OT networks are leveraging well-integrated solutions based on strong segmentation and specialized analytics to ensure the safety and reliability of physical processes and things, addressing new (IoT) security risks targeting multi-vector threat landscapes.
These partnerships extend the range of integrated security solutions now available to OT customers through the Fortinet Security Fabric. Fortinet’s Security Fabric platform approach to cyber security leverages Fabric APIs, Fabric Connectors and DevOps scripts and tools to create an open ecosystem to accommodate leading technology solutions. This integrated approach seamlessly brings together a wide range of critical security solutions designed for the OT segment to enable comprehensive and centralized safety, reliability and security.
Operational Technology (OT) organizations are adopting digital transformation to unlock the advantages of the Internet and connected IIoT devices. But as cybercriminals begin to more aggressively target OT devices and systems, OT networks need to evolve to address increasing cyber risk. The challenge is that the nature of many OT networks requires security technologies and solutions in order to provide protections without impacting the function of oftentimes sensitive equipment and systems. As OT networks emerge as a new target for cybercriminals, they need a single, cohesive Security Fabric platform that enables them to seamlessly address security risk across multi-vector threat landscapes without overburdening security staff resources or impacting their networked environments.
Operational Technology and Cyber Security
Fortinet is one of the few major security vendors to address the cyber security safety and reliability challenges being faced by the OT industry. The Fortinet Security Fabric provides a centralized and integrated platform approach to security through purpose-built solutions designed for OT environments, combined with strategic partnerships with OT security specialists. Unlike most security platforms, the Fortinet Security Fabric is flexible enough to accommodate and integrate with a large number of partners to provide comprehensive security coverage for this important segment.