In an exclusive conversation with CXO News & APAC News Network, Vivek Srivastava, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Fortinet outlines the competitive advantage of FortiOS and how its OT security platform is targeted for industrial environments.
What are the solutions and services currently in the Fortinet portfolio in India? What are the services offered by the Fortinet data centers in India?
Fortinet offers customers in India a platform approach to security through our Fortinet Security Fabric. It spans more than 50 enterprise-grade products and services, including network firewalls, wired and wireless LAN, SD-WAN, SASE, SIEM, and EPP. This extensive integrated product portfolio can be combined with open APIs and with our deep technology alliance partner ecosystem of over 500 third-party vendors.
The data centers in Pune and Bangalore address the growing demand for secure connections by expanding coverage for Fortinet Universal SASE, FortiCloud, and FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services. Fortinet Universal SASE converges networking and security to support today’s hybrid workforce, covering network edges and microbranches to enable secure access to applications while providing high ROI through consolidation and improved digital user experience.
FortiCloud is Fortinet’s platform for delivering security and security management services. FortiCloud provides customers with a simple way to connect, protect, and deliver their data and applications on-premises and in the cloud.FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services provides market-leading, AI-enabled security capabilities to protect application content, web traffic, devices, and users wherever deployed. It continuously assesses risks and automatically responds to and counters known and unknown threats anywhere across the distributed network.
What has been the traction for Fortinet’s new Secure Networking product innovations and the SD-WAN services?
Fortinet has once again been recognized as a Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for SD-WAN. This marks the fifth year in a row that Fortinet has received this distinction for our Secure SD-WAN solution based on user reviews. We also received the highest number of reviews (434) of all vendors in the SD-WAN Market as of December 31, 2023, with an overall rating of 4.9 out of 5. And, we are the only vendor to receive the Customers’ Choice distinction across all company size segments both large and mid-size.
Fortinet Secure SD-WAN is powered by a single operating system, FortiOS, and provides unified management to simplify and integrate critical functions and services. FortiOS and FortiGuard AI-powered security Services enable Fortinet to continue innovating, accelerating customers on their journey to adopting a Unified SASE strategy. With its embedded ZTNA application gateway, integrated security and network functions, SD-WAN, cloud-based protections for end-to-end visibility, and analytics capabilities organizations can achieve their zero-trust initiatives using a single platform to eliminate architectural complexity.
Fortinet’s existing portfolio of integrated solutions and services has a distinct competitive advantage. How will you uniquely differentiate yourself on this count from other competitors?
Fortinet is the world’s leading network security vendor, representing over half of all global firewall deployments. Our ASIC-powered FortiGate appliances deliver 3x to 10x more performance than competitive solutions. In addition to our physical firewalls, we offer virtual, cloud-native, and Firewall-as-a-Service solutions. We are also the only vendor to offer a full portfolio of fully integrated wired and wireless LAN technologies, all based on the same FortiOS operating system that consolidates critical networking and security functions into a single platform. We are also the first vendor to announce business-grade WiFi 7 access points with fully integrated security functionality.
We are the first vendor to provide a complete and fully integrated single operating system SASE solution to support end-users and applications from end to end. Recently we added 40 new features to our Unified SASE solution to offer a high-performance and scalable cloud network with best-in-class AI-powered security, unified management, and end-to-end digital experience monitoring to ensure secure access to web, corporate, and SaaS applications.
In light of this differentiation, what are Fortinet’s business focus and core growth areas in the Indian market? Which are the verticals where the solutions are witnessing maximum traction?
Fortinet’s success lies in our broad, integrated platform, proprietary ASIC security processors, and ability to converge networking and security on-premises and in the cloud using a single FortiOS operating system. We will continue leveraging these advantages to drive future growth. This unique integrated strategy and our growing go-to-market investments have enabled significant growth outside our market-leading network security solutions, including SASE, SD-WAN, OT security, cloud security, and security operations.
We see telecom service providers and cloud providers taking advantage of the huge competitive and cost advantages of offering security services with our solutions, and Fortinet will continue to work closely with these providers on these offerings. We are also witnessing uptake of our platform approach to security among Government, Financial Institutions, Manufacturing, IT/ITES, Retail, Education, and Healthcare.
What are the key pillars on which Fortinet’s GTM strategy rests in India? What are some of the key initiatives under this strategy?
When security and networking are deployed as separate processes networks cannot address rapidly shifting business requirements as they wait for security to catch up, increasing complexities. Many organizations are converging their networking and cybersecurity tools and strategies with our integrated secure networking solutions. We have an expansive portfolio of innovative solutions to address today’s evolving markets more actively. And we are still the only vendor to deliver an ASIC-enhanced platform to deliver the networking and security performance today’s organizations require.
Fortinet has one of the industry’s broadest portfolios of networking and security solutions. Much of our development, including building over 30 critical networking and security solutions into FortiOS, has been in anticipation of the market changes we are seeing now. Three addressable markets have become the foundation of our current strategy: Security Operations (SecOps), Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), and Secure Networking.
What is the overall channel structure that Fortinet currently follows in India? How are these differentiated between distributors, MSPs, ISVs, and SIs? How would you elaborate on the nature of some of these partnerships?
Our partnership strategy focuses on aligning with partners’ business models—whether Integrator, MSSP, or Cloud—tailored to meet customer needs and strategic objectives. We encourage specialization in key areas such as SD-WAN, SecOps, or Operational Technology (OT), recognizing the significant growth potential and the value of specialized cybersecurity solutions.
The balance between traditional and new-age partners is changing; although traditional partners remain vital, the significance of new-age partners, especially in cloud security, is becoming more apparent. Collaborations with global and local cloud providers and MSSP partners have been key in expanding our reach and delivering tailored solutions. In 2023, Fortinet’s channel business in India not only thrived but also evolved with a vibrant partner ecosystem. We are committed to nurturing strong relationships with all our partners—both traditional and new-age—to collectively advance and succeed in the cybersecurity domain.
Operational technology differs significantly from traditional IT systems. What are the frameworks and solutions from Fortinet that will effectively reduce risk and secure the OT environment?
We understand that OT differs significantly from traditional IT systems, and that’s why our OT Security Platform was purpose-built to provide integrated protection and risk management specific to industrial environments. The number of industrial devices connected beyond their network boundaries is rapidly increasing, and CISOs now face skyrocketing risks across their OT environments. To solve this challenge, organizations need an integrated security approach designed specifically for industrial solutions that enables policy enforcement across the entire attack surface, consolidates point products, and reduces operational overhead.
The Fortinet OT Security Platform is an integrated portfolio of cybersecurity products, solutions, and security services designed specifically for industrial networks and powered by real-time OT threat intelligence. Because the OT Security Platform is a part of the Fortinet Security Fabric, it empowers customers with deep visibility across their entire environment and securely facilitates IT/OT convergence. The platform also gives organizations the ability to implement a zero-trust model within OT environments, including secure remote access to OT assets and systems for remote employees and suppliers.
What are the best practices that you recommend for CISOs for focusing on proactive defense instead of in a perennial firefighting mode?
Create a comprehensive incident response plan and related playbooks that outline the steps to take in the event of a cybersecurity incident. You also need to regularly test and update your plans to ensure their effectiveness. Perform regular security audits and risk assessments to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses in your organization’s infrastructure. This proactive approach helps in addressing potential issues before they can be exploited by threat actors.
Enforce MFA for accessing sensitive systems and data. MFA adds an extra layer of security by requiring your users to verify their identity. Adding ZTNA enhances secure access to sensitive resources by providing encrypted tunnels, granular access controls, per-application access, and ongoing connection monitoring.
Regularly patching vulnerabilities is a fundamental measure to prevent exploitation by cybercriminals. It is imperative that you keep all software, operating systems, and applications up to date with the latest security patches. Look to leverage AI and other systems to automate tedious patching tasks.
Implement a robust data backup and recovery strategy. This ensures that, in the event of a ransomware attack or data loss, your organization can quickly recover essential information. Similarly, robust network segmentation ensures that the impact of a breach is limited in scope, aiding in the rapid recovery of your network while maintaining business resiliency.
What specific cybersecurity measures should CISOs adopt in a remote work-from-anywhere environment now followed by enterprises?
Unified SASE is about bridging the gap between on-premises and cloud-based security. Unified SASE is a comprehensive architecture that expands on the single-vendor SASE approach. It encompasses security service edge (SSE), which is our FortiSASE service, Universal ZTNA (zero-trust network access), and Secure SD-WAN to deliver secure access for today’s hybrid workforce. Multi-cloud security for cloud applications and network protection is also included in Fortinet Unified SASE for comprehensive security and flexibility.
This holistic approach ensures secure access for users, regardless of their location or the applications they’re accessing. In an era when remote work and diverse network architectures are the norm, Unified SASE offers a consistent, secure experience for organizations of any size.
What are going to be some of Fortinet’s key focus areas in the next few quarters?
Secure networking remains a vital part of our strategy and a market that we believe will return to double-digit annual growth over time. The secure networking market is valued at $62 billion and is projected to increase high single digits annually to $86 billion by 2027. Our consistent focus on innovation continues to drive our market share gains for secure networking.
Security operations are a $46 billion market with an annual growth rate in the mid-teens. It is expected to grow to $78 billion by 2027. Our comprehensive SecOps platform offers EDR, SIEM, SOAR, NDR, and other solutions as a fully integrated package. It provides customers with the most deeply comprehensive and integrated SecOps offering in the industry. We are the only vendor to provide seamless integration of the underlying security tools needed to keep up with the demands of today’s security operations, enabling the powerful automation SecOps teams need to detect, analyze, and respond to today’s threats. And because our advanced AI is integrated across the entire SecOps portfolio, including our consolidated management and analytics systems, organizations are able to receive automatic threat detection and response within seconds of a cyber incident.
We are also increasing our focus on SASE—a $17 billion market expected to grow at a 20% compound annual growth rate to $36 billion by 2027. We believe Fortinet is the only company with a SASE service solution positioned to address all use cases today’s organizations need.
