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8,000 students, 1,300 instructors and 400 employees now protected from web-based attacks
Dubai, UAE, August 17, 2014 - Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT) - a leader in
high-performance network security – today announced that the Holy Spirit
University of Kaslik, a private catholic higher education institution in
Lebanon, has chosen Fortinet’s technology to secure and optimize its infrastructure and
applications used by its students, instructors and employees. The
institution implemented Fortinet’s FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW),
FortiAuthenticator™ user identity management, and FortiAnalyzer™ for network security logging,
analysis and reporting. Fortinet’s appliances were chosen for their high-level
of performance, broad range of security features and ease of deployment and
management.
Located in the heart of Mount
Lebanon, the Holy Spirit University of
Kaslik (“USEK”) provides a broad array of high-level diversified
education and scientific research. The university hosts 8,000 students, 1,300 faculty
and 400 employees on four campuses located in Kaslik, Zahle, Chekka, Rmeich and
Jbeil (Faculty of Medicine).
With the proliferation of the
university’s students and faculty staff use of personal mobile devices (BYOD),
such as tablets, smartphones and laptops via the university’s wireless network,
it became crucial to implement a
solid security strategy to enforce both wired and wireless access and use
policies to both internal and external resources to prevent possible security
threats without compromising the user experience. In May 2014, the institution decided to replace its
existing Cisco, Tipping Point and Blue Coat security solutions with a single
provider in order to standardize its network security and simplify the
management of its security appliances. The institution conducted an analysis of
IT security solutions and Fortinet was identified as the only vendor offering
the best security solution in terms of features, performance, simplicity
and reliability.
"We previously relied on solutions from different vendors to
protect our network and applications, moreover with Fortinet’s FortiGate™
platform, we have broad security features within a single appliance. Only
FortiGate had all the security and authentication features that match our
specific requirements without compromising security and performance. During our various tests, Fortinet’s solutions
proved to be technically superior to competing solutions both in terms of
performance and reliability,” said Ziad Eid, IT Director and CIO at the Holy
Spirit University of Kaslik.
The
implementation of two FortiGate-800C next generation firewall appliances, two
FortiAuthenticator-1000D and one FortiAnalyzer-1000C had been completed in May
2014 by Fortinet’s partner, Triple C, to deliver the following integrated
features : IPS, application control, web-content filtering, SSL and IPSec VPNs,
with the ability to create, deploy and manage security profiles in a simple and
efficient way. The migration from the previous Cisco firewalls to Fortinet was
smooth and seamless, while a unique approach integrating with the existing
wireless controllers, USEK were able to receive accounting messages related to
802.1x wireless authenticated users through the Forti-Authenticator device.
“Since
the beginning of our business relationship with Fortinet in 2004, Triple C have
adopted Fortinet’s security solutions and promoted its innovative products in
various vertical markets across Lebanon,” said
Jacques Rahmouch, VP of Business Development at Triple C. “As a Fortinet
Gold partner with 5 FCNSP certifications, we have conducted successful POCs
against the major players in the market to proof the Fortinet solution value,
and our certified technical team successfully rolled out the solution by
migrating from legacy products to Fortinet. We are glad that USEK entrusted
Triple C for its security expertise and outstanding technical support and
Fortinet security solutions to solving the problems they had with the existing
solution.”
User identity and access
security was strengthened using the FortiAuthenticator-1000D Single Sign On
(SSO), to manage and enforce the unique user’s security profile for both wired
and wireless access. “The big
advantage of Fortinet over all the competition is the ability to do seamless
authentication with Active Directory. It enables user identity based
security without impeding the user or generating work for network
administrators. Built on the foundations of Fortinet Single Sign-On, the FortiAuthenticator
is the network’s gatekeeper, identifying users, querying access permissions
from third party systems and communicating this information to the FortiGate
devices for identity-based policies enforcement. Now a user will benefit from
the same security profile applied whether using a desktop or using any mobile
device,” explains Abdo Karaki, Head of Network and Security Division at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik.
Finally, the FortiAnalyzer-1000C, Fortinet’s logging and
reporting appliance, securely collects and centralizes daily logs
of FortiGate devices and allows the creation of reports and statistics for
complete visibility of the network security posture and network traffic
analysis. “Thanks to FortiAnalyzer, the reports generated help us in improving our
services and optimizing our security profiles,” said Abdo Karaki.
Having
completed the deployment of Fortinet's solutions at its main campus, the
institution is now evaluating network security at its other locations. "Very
soon we will implement FortiGate-300C at our biggest branch in the Zahle area.
We have acquired a good level of technical know-how and are capable of
deploying and managing our Fortinet appliances. This success has motivated the
IT team to have more Fortinet implementations at branches and remote faculties
as well," added Eid.
"We
are delighted to have the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik as our customer. With
the performance and broad features offered by our products and solutions,
Fortinet is able to ensure customer satisfaction via network security
infrastructure simplification while enhancing user experience and reducing total
cost of ownership (TCO)," said Alain Penel, Regional Vice President –
Middle East, Fortinet.
About Fortinet
Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) helps protect
networks, users and data from continually evolving threats. As a global leader
in high-performance network security, we enable businesses and governments to
consolidate and integrate stand-alone technologies without suffering
performance penalties. Unlike costly, inflexible and low-performance
alternatives, Fortinet solutions empower customers to embrace new technologies
and business opportunities while protecting essential systems and content.
Learn more at www.fortinet.com.
Copyright © 2014 Fortinet, Inc. All rights
reserved. The symbols ® and ™ denote respectively federally registered
trademarks and unregistered trademarks of Fortinet, Inc., its subsidiaries and
affiliates. Fortinet's trademarks include, but are not limited to, the
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herein may be unique to certain environments. This news release may contain forward-looking
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