Network security has become crucial in enterprises’ daily operations. The rise in virus and hacker attacks emphasises the need for a good security strategy to ensure enterprises stay competitive. Fortinet Inc’s sales director of South Asia, Benjamin Teh shares his views.

Teh expects network and security threats to be sophisticated and targeted.

Q: What is Fortinet’s market outlook for network security?

A: We expect the network and security threats to be sophisticated and targeted.

From our observation, security strategies based on point products are no longer sufficient, mainly because the primary motivation of hackers has shifted from gaining notoriety to making money, causing a change in the diversity, sophistication, and elusiveness of threats.

The widespread availability of exploit development frameworks means that both new threats and variants of existing ones can be generated easily and rapidly.

What’s more, the impact of enabling higher degrees of user mobility, interconnectivity, and third-party access to an organisation’s network system has led to the introduction of more points of entry for threats, as well as increased physical distribution of the data and resources requiring protection.



Q: What are the latest security threats facing mid-enterprises today, and how damaging are these threats to their business?

A: The latest security risks facing mid-enterprises today lies in mobile threats. SMEs (small and medium enterprises) should be concerned about security because confidential data, if leaked, can have serious legal liabilities. For example, if a business keeps credit card numbers of its customers, or is involved in any kind of data collection that involves confidential or sensitive data (medical records, legal briefs, etc), the legal liabilities are huge if the information reaches the wrong hands. This can be the result of a successful hacking attempt, or something as simple as a keylogger or Trojan that gets installed in an employee’s computer.

Newer businesses are more dependent on computer networks, databases and servers. A successful denial-of-service (DoS) attack could mean that the company ceases business until the servers can be brought online again.

Larger businesses already have established reputation while smaller businesses are just starting out. Even a successful vandalism of the enterprise’s Web page or a partially successful attack can have serious consequences for a company just starting to build its reputation.



Q: Are local companies investing enough (in network security solutions) to protect themselves?

A: Security risks evolve from the changes brought by new IT environment and new working practices. As such, there is always room for improvement.



Q: What other security measures can companies take to better counter these emerging IT security threats? 

A: On the surface, conventional UTM (unified threat management) technology seems suitable to ongoing changes in technology threats. However, the UTM market is quite crowded and the corresponding products vary in terms of quality and overall effectiveness.

To better counter these emerging threats, organisations can cut through the confusion by embracing purpose-built network security platforms instead. Essentially, a purpose-built network security platform is an advanced UTM solution – one that employs an optimised design to ensure that organisations can maximise the associated gains.

Purpose-built network security platforms are a pragmatic network security solution – one that addresses the functional, logical, and physical security requirements of today’s organisations. In addition, it achieves the highest levels of security effectiveness and operational efficiency and is not disruptive to business critical communications and application transactions.



Q: What is Fortinet’s strategy in the network security market?

A: Fortinet has already achieved significant success with the SME market. More resources will be dedicated to support activities to achieve the same results in the enterprise segment.

We have launched an aggressive channel growth strategy aimed at boosting the number of enterprise resellers.

The new strategy is focused on growing the company’s participation in the enterprise market, particularly with resellers specialising in education, financial, government and healthcare.