Hey guys,

I just got final confirmation from Mr. Evan Fromberg, Director of Sales, Channel Partners at Fortinet, that they will be presenting their new FortiOS version 4 to us at our local group meeting in NYC on April 9^th at 6pm. He and his engineer will be there to present the OS and answer our technical questions. Sweet, i’m excited.

FortiOS provides the foundation for the operation of all FortiGate appliances, from the core kernel functions to the security processing feature sets. FortiOS provides multiple layers of security for a variety of applications and content including Web, Email, FTP, IM/P2P, NNTP, and others. The main security features of FortiOS include Firewall, Virtual Private Networking (IPsec and SSL VPN), Antivirus, Intrusion Prevention, Web filtering, and Antispam.

With the release of FortiOS 4.0, Fortinet has redefined network security again by extending the scope of consolidated security and networking capabilities within FortiGate® multi-threat network security platforms. With over 40 new features, FortiOS 4.0 delivers on its mission to enable secure business communications while offering the best security, performance, and total cost of ownership possible.

New in FortiOS 4.0

WAN Optimization
WAN optimization provides acceleration for applications traversing slower network connections – which are typically WANs. The combination of multi-threat security, traffic optimization, and VPN technologies provides cleaned, accelerated, and secured communications.

Application Control
Application control uses our dynamic application identification engine that recognizes applications based on their behavior. By coupling application control policies with sophisticated security features, administrators can achieve comprehensive protection with granular and more meaningful policies.

Data Leakage Prevention (DLP)
DLP uses a sophisticated pattern-matching and regular-expression engine to identify then prevent the communication of sensitive information outside of the network perimeter. In addition, DLP technology also provides audit trails for data and files, which can aid in legislative compliance.

SSL Inspection
SSL inspection ensures protection from malware infection that is camouflaged by secured protocols, allowing the FortiGate to decrypt the data passing through the SSL-encrypted connection. Once decrypted, the data can be passed to FortiOS security engines for inspection.

More info on the new OS here http://www.fortinet.com/products/fortios/.

Registration is open here http://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=137146 and the meeting page will be available with details shortly.

Many thanks to Mr. Fromberg for accepting my invite/request and I look forward to the meeting.

~Brett A. Scudder~

IT Security Attaché