Fortinet: Complete Content Protection

Fortinet released its FortiOS 2.8 operating system this month with dynamic prevention and 50 new features and enhancements.

The updated platform now accelerates stateful inspection, which looks at e-mail headers, and deep-packet inspection, which checks packet content. In addition, the technology now performs what the company calls complete content protection, which gathers all packets and reassembles them to check for threats.

"Deep-packet inspection has its uses," said Rick Kagan, vice president of marketing at Fortinet, Sunnyvale, Calif. "But say [for example] someone is sending parts for a tank to Libya in different boxes, just as a worm would be sent in several packets individually. Deep-packet inspection only sees individual packets, or pieces, and not the whole picture, while complete content protection gathers all the pieces and realizes it's a threat as a whole."

FortiOS 2.8 detects viruses and worms and automatically prevents them from infiltrating the network and can detect more than 1,400 types of malicious code. The platform deters content-based attacks overall by combining antivirus, intrusion detection and intrusion prevention.

The company also formed a partnership with Cerberian, Salt Lake City, which has an on-line database of more than 5 million URLs that have offensive or inappropriate content.

For MSPs, the platform now gives them the ability to use a single FortiGate 3000 or 3600 device to support multiple users with the appearance that the customer has its own box. This is akin to shared Web hosting and saves both the MSP and the customer money, Kagan said.

Fortinet works with the channel and has a relationship with distributors Alternate Technology and Westcon Group, which are beginning to offer the new product to their resellers.