Fortinet is expanding its SOC offerings portfolio

• Fortinet announced new security operations center augmentation services to help organizations, especially with short-staffed teams.
• Fortinet Training Institute has added initiatives across its programs to further increase access to its training and certifications.
• Fortinet’s new services help SOC teams reduce their organizations’ cyber risk while allowing them to focus elsewhere.

Broad, integrated, and automated cybersecurity solutions provider, Fortinet announced new security operations center augmentation services. With new services, Fortinet aims to help organizations to strengthen their cyber resiliency and support short-staffed teams. Fortinet Training Institute has also introduced initiatives across its programs to further increase access to training and certifications to help close the cyber skills gap.

Cybersecurity skills shortage

Fortinet also stated that the talent shortage is one of the top challenges for SOC teams. The lack of resources and personnel in the field mostly results in missed detections or slower responses, increasing the exposure to cyber threats. To be able to mitigate these challenges, SOC teams require immediate solutions. Fortinet’s new and enhanced services help SOC teams reduce their organizations’ cyber risk. These updates include:

• SOC-as-a-Service (SOCaaS): Fortinet has expanded its SOCaaS offering, which blends FortiGuard cybersecurity experts with Fortinet advanced SOC technology by adding more artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to additional use cases. These updates enhance the offering’s ability to aggregate security alerts in one single cloud-based dashboard for customers to view actionable intelligence and accelerate resolution, and further enables security operations teams to offload monitoring and detection to Fortinet security experts. With this approach, Fortinet speeds up alert triage, rapidly escalates security incidents, and reduces false-positive alerts for customers.
• Outbreak Detection Service: A new outbreak detection service is available to customers that alerts subscribers through email as well as automatically within key product user interfaces to major breaking cybersecurity events that have the potential for widespread ramifications. These alerts include critical information about security incidents, such as an attack’s timeline of events and what specific technology has been affected. In addition, the alerts also provide organizations with custom threat hunting to run against logs and identify the potential impact of an attack, as well as recommendations to improve their security posture for better protection in the future.
• Incident Response and Readiness (IR&R) Services: Fortinet recently added cybersecurity readiness services as part of its Incident Response offering and shifted the purchasing model to prioritize prevention. By providing a suite of proactive prevention-oriented services, such as risk assessments, playbook development, and tabletop exercises as part of the Incident Response and Readiness Services retainer, organizations can strengthen their cyber preparedness, SOC effectiveness, and reduce cyber risk, while still having access to a team of FortiGuard experts to help with rapid containment and remediation in the event of a cyberattack. In response to an accelerated demand for these services around the globe, Fortinet is also expanding its headcount dedicated to IR&R and SOC automation capabilities to allow more enterprises to have access to the offering.

Also, the Fortinet Training Institute offers multi-level training and certifications to professionals who are interested in advancing and improving their knowledge in key cybersecurity areas. Programs also help untap new talent pools to help build the cyber workforce of the future. These programs focus on providing training opportunities for women, veterans, students, and underserved populations. Some recent updates across programs include:

• Increasing Access to Advanced Technical Training: Fortinet has made the practical exam for NSE level 8 more accessible for IT and security professionals everywhere. Both the written and practical portions of the exam are now available in an online, proctored format, making the highest and most elite level of the Network Security Expert (NSE) Certification program more accessible to security professionals around the world.
• Supporting the Advancement of Women Professionals in Cybersecurity: The first women cohort of the Fortinet and Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) bootcamp completed the program, which offered 100 WiCyS members access to Fortinet’s NSE level 4 training and labs for free, technical mentors, exam vouchers, and more. Fortinet has also awarded five of the program participants with scholarships to attend the annual WiCyS Conference March 16–18, where they will have access to cyber leaders and employers.
• Developing Cybersecurity Skills in Youth: To further develop the cyber workforce of the future, Fortinet is sponsorin

  

  g various cybersecurity-based competitions for students in varying academic levels, ranging from middle school to college. This includes being a platinum sponsor of MITRE Engenuity’s Embedded Capture the Flag (eCTF) 12-week competition and a category sponsor for the Carnegie Mellon Capture the Flag competition.

John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet said,

« Fortinet builds ML-driven automation into all of its SOC offerings to support short-staffed teams affected by the cybersecurity skills shortage. But technology alone won’t solve this issue, which is why we are dedicated to also delivering human-based SOC augmentation services to provide immediate support, while investing in an industry-leading training institute to close the cybersecurity skills gap. This combination of technology, services, and training enables SOC professionals to better protect their organizations from detection to incident recovery. »