Fortinet Delivers Industry's First Secure Content Processing Systems That Enable Virus Scanning, Content Filtering, and Other Applications to be Deployed as Network Services.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

NetWorld+Interop 2002 Las Vegas

Booth #7888

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 6, 2002

FortiGate Product Family First to Deliver Real-Time Security,

Virus Scanning, and Content Filtering at the Network Edge

Advancing the state of the art for network protection, Fortinet Inc., today announced immediate availability of its FortiGate(TM) family of Secure Content Processing Gateways (SCPGs). The six FortiGate products are the first to support network-based delivery of high-performance, application-level services such as virus protection and content filtering; they also support network-level services such as firewall, virtual private networks (VPNs), intrusion detection, and traffic shaping. These services enable organizations to improve security, reduce network misuse and abuse, and better utilize their communications resources, without compromising network performance. Fortinet announced the FortiGate Series today at the Networld+Interop show in Las Vegas.

Editors Note: Fortinet will be demonstrating its FortiGate products at NetWorld+Interop, May 7-9, in booth #7888.

"Many organizations are struggling to balance their need for continuous, high-performance access to the public network with their needs for increased security, better control of network usage, and reduced spending on IT equipment and staff," said Ken Xie, president and CEO of Fortinet. "Our FortiGate platforms address major gaps in the current approaches to network security and content management by providing improved security and content control, high performance, easy deployment, and lower equipment and management costs. We've received very positive user reactions and look forward to building on our initial success."

FortiGate SCPGs are dedicated hardware/software platforms located at the edge of enterprise and service provider networks that are powerful enough to scan content at the application level and detect network threats in real time. Designed by a team led by Xie, original founder and former chairman of NetScreen Technologies, the FortiGate SCPGs employ Fortinet's Accelerated Behavior and Content Analysis System (ABACAS(TM)) technology, which leverages breakthroughs in ASIC chip design, networking, security, and content analysis to offer hardware-accelerated performance. The six FortiGate models address the needs of small offices/home offices (SOHOs), small businesses, branch offices, enterprises, and service providers, offering throughput of up to 2 Gbps.

"Host-based, anti-virus and content-filtering offerings have definite benefits, but the challenge to deploy them throughout an extended enterprise requires a lot of effort to manage and can still leave companies open to attacks and inappropriate content," said Matthew Kovar, director, Security Solutions & Services Planning Service at The Yankee Group. "By enabling key applications like anti-virus and content filtering to be delivered in a dedicated platform, Fortinet is delivering on The Yankee Group's vision for the next generation of network-based security services. We believe that network-based deployment of application-level content processing is an idea whose time has come. The FortiGate product line represents the start of a major evolution in how organizations will deploy network security and content management services."

Breaking the Barrier to Improved Security and Content Control

Today, effective network protection requires more than packet-level filtering and encryption. Content-borne viruses and worms, inappropriate Web content, and email spam all threaten network efficiency and organizational productivity. The FortiGate Series is the first to break the Content Processing Barrier caused by the inability of conventional network devices to handle the enormous amount of processing -- up to 100 times that required by network-level functions such as firewall services -- needed for application-level analysis of network content in real time.

To date, the only viable solution for delivering these application-level services has been to allow potentially harmful or inappropriate content to penetrate an organization's first line of defense -- the firewall/VPN gateway -- and install and maintain anti-virus, content filtering, and spam elimination software on host desktops and servers where content can be processed without real-time constraints. Though host-based solutions play an important role in an organization's overall security and content management architecture, they still leave organizations open to attack -- especially during the "vulnerability window" that exists between the time that a new threat is detected and an updated list of known threats is installed on every host on the network.

The FortiGate series' unique architecture breaks the Content Processing Barrier, closes the vulnerability window, and delivers a full suite of application-level and network-level services in a single device located at the network edge, thus removing many of the limitations imposed by using a collection of disparate devices. For example, VPN gateway functionality lets Fortinet products "see inside" encrypted VPN tunnels and perform content analysis on data streams that would otherwise pass through unchecked.

The series' integrated capabilities also reduce equipment costs as well as administration and maintenance requirements. A single, automatic update to the FortiGate SCPG protects an enterprise against new attacks, ensuring that it need not remain exposed (or cut off from Internet access) until every host in the enterprise has been updated individually with the latest anti-virus software.

Strong Response From Customers

Enterprise customers are very positive about the FortiGate Series.

"Until we learned about Fortinet, we had considered

shutting down Internet access whenever we learned of a new

attack until we were certain that every one of our desktops,

laptops, and servers had updated anti-virus protection," said

Francis Leong, system administrator at Agile Software, Inc.

"We've tested the FortiGate product extensively, and we're

extremely impressed with its capabilities, performance, and

ease of management. We originally planned to use FortiGate

just to enhance our virus protection, but we now feel

confident that we can improve our security and lower our costs

by using the FortiGate products to deliver a full range of

services at the edge of our network."

Service providers have also reacted enthusiastically to the FortiGate Series.

"Comparing the FortiGate family side-by-side with

conventional products demonstrates just how impressive the

performance numbers are," said Gang Sheng, senior engineer at

Beijing Telecom.

A Comprehensive Product Line from SOHO to Service Provider

All FortiGate SCPGs employ the ABACAS technology, which is based on two key elements:

-- The FortiGate-50 and FortiGate-100 SCPGs for SOHO, telecommuter, and branch
office applications provide from 30 Mbps to 95 Mbps of throughput, are easily
installed using the browser-based Installation Wizard, and are attractively
priced.

-- The FortiGate-200 and FortiGate-300 SCPGs provide the best combination of
performance and value for small and medium-sized businesses and branch offices,
with 160 Mbps of capacity and support for up to 1,500 concurrent VPN tunnels
(with triple-DES encryption). These systems also support 20 Gigabyte internal
hard drives for logging and analysis of usage and attacks.

-- The enterprise-class FortiGate-400 SCPG delivers 300 Mbps of throughput and
supports an extended database that includes thousands of virus and worm
signatures. A high-availability port and fail-over logic to support redundant
configurations makes the FortiGate-400 ideal for mission-critical applications.


-- The FortiGate-2000 carrier-class device lets large enterprises and service
providers deliver high-value, high-availability, managed security and
content-control services. It supports real-time, anti-virus scanning, 500,000
concurrent sessions, 5,000 VPN tunnels, and 2 gigabits/second of firewall
throughput. Redundant power supplies and a high-availability port with
transparent fail-over ensure non-stop operation.

The FortiGate family provides a wide range of price/performance points for diverse network environments. All models provide anti-virus protection, keyword and URL-based content filtering, stateful-inspection firewall, IPSec VPN, and intrusion detection functions as standard features. All models except the FortiGate 50 also provide traffic shaping as a standard function.

-- The FortiGate-50 and FortiGate-100 SCPGs for SOHO, telecommuter, and branch
office applications provide from 30 Mbps to 95 Mbps of throughput, are easily
installed using the browser-based Installation Wizard, and are attractively
priced.

-- The FortiGate-200 and FortiGate-300 SCPGs provide the best combination of
performance and value for small and medium-sized businesses and branch offices,
with 160 Mbps of capacity and support for up to 1,500 concurrent VPN tunnels
(with triple-DES encryption). These systems also support 20 Gigabyte internal
hard drives for logging and analysis of usage and attacks.

-- The enterprise-class FortiGate-400 SCPG delivers 300 Mbps of throughput and
supports an extended database that includes thousands of virus and worm
signatures. A high-availability port and fail-over logic to support redundant
configurations makes the FortiGate-400 ideal for mission-critical applications.


-- The FortiGate-2000 carrier-class device lets large enterprises and service
providers deliver high-value, high-availability, managed security and
content-control services. It supports real-time, anti-virus scanning, 500,000
concurrent sessions, 5,000 VPN tunnels, and 2 gigabits/second of firewall
throughput. Redundant power supplies and a high-availability port with
transparent fail-over ensure non-stop operation.

Pricing, System Requirements, and Availability

The FortiGate SCPG models 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 2000 are available immediately. List prices range from U.S. $695 to $39,995.

About Fortinet

Fortinet, the pioneering provider of Secure Content Processing systems, enables enterprises and service providers to improve the security of their networks, reduce misuse and abuse, and better utilize network resources without compromising performance -- at dramatically lower costs. Fortinet's industry-leading FortiGate Series of Secure Content Processing Gateways (SCPGs) breaks the Content Processing Barrier, delivering application-level services such as virus protection and content filtering along with firewall, VPN, intrusion detection, and traffic shaping functions as high-performance network services in dedicated, easily managed platforms. Developed by proven industry visionaries, the FortiGate Series is powered by Fortinet's Accelerated Behavior and Content Analysis System (ABACAS(TM)) technology, which includes the patent-pending FortiASIC(TM) content processing engine, enabling the FortiGate Series to usher in a new era of network protection services. Fortinet is privately held and based in Palo Alto, Calif. The company's web address is http://www.Fortinet.com.

Note to Editors: Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiASIC, FortiOS, and ABACAS are trademarks of Fortinet, Inc.