14 DAY TRIAL // Network security company Fortinet has announced FortiOS 5.2, the latest version of the operating system that powers the FortiGate platform.
The latest release includes enhancements designed to strengthen the Advanced Threat Protection Framework to enable enterprises to protect their networks and systems against advanced persistent threats (APTs), zero-day attacks and other sophisticated malware.
The Advanced Threat Protection Framework includes access control for reducing the attack surface; threat prevention to proactively mitigate attacks by inspecting code, traffic and websites; incident response; threat detection mechanisms for identifying indicators of compromise; and continuous monitoring systems.
The access control mechanism has a new graphical policy table manipulation feature that allows users to configure firewall policies more easily.
The threat prevention component now includes an inline SSL engine that enables the inspection of encrypted traffic five times faster. In addition, it also has a new deep flow advanced malware engine, and enhanced explicit web proxy. To neutralize the latest exploit techniques, the enhanced IPS engine leverages enhanced decoders and dynamic analysis techniques.
Incident response brings new dashboard views, role-based workflow modes and direct policy table manipulation.
The continuous monitoring system is designed to assess and improve an organization’s security posture based on individual and industry baselines. The improvements in FortiOS 5.2 include access to the FortiSandbox community, deep application control for cloud visibility and new consolidated views with identity-based policy and log cross-referencing.
“More than ever, enterprises require intelligent, integrated solutions to prevent data theft and network disruption caused by stealthy, targeted attacks. Despite what many vendors would have you believe, there is no one product or ‘silver bullet’ to solve this problem,” said John Maddison, vice president of marketing for Fortinet.
“Today, Fortinet has introduced important enhancements to its FortiOS operating system to help better protect against ATPs,” Maddison added.
“FortiOS 5.2 supports the broader, coordinated framework for Advanced Threat Protection that we have established to guide organizations through a structured approach of defense. Only such a framework can allow enterprises to effectively protect themselves against the new generation of threats they are facing.”
It’s worth noting that FortiOS 5.2 will still be supported by current versions of FortiAnalyzer 5.0 and FortiManager 5.0 with new patches. FortiOS 5.2 and the patches will become available sometime in the second quarter of 2014.
However, a release candidate of FortiOS 5.2 is already available. Customers interested in downloading and testing it must register on the company’s beta program enrollment page.