Security appliance

Fortinet has added FortiOS WAN Optimisation and SSL Inspection to its FortiGate security appliances. Features of the operating system include advanced application controls, data leakage protection (DLP), WAN optimisation and SSL traffic inspection. The combination of these features will help customers secure their networks, protect data and accelerate applications, the company claims.

FortiOS 4.0 allows businesses to consolidate multiple advanced networking and security services into a single appliance. This helps to reduce both the carbon and physical footprints of data centres, while simplifying IT support requirements and reducing CAPEX/OPEX.

Application Control Traffic is recognised by the application which is generating it, instead of the port or protocol observed. More than 1000 applications are automatically recognised. DLP helps to identify and prevent the communication of sensitive information outside of the network boundaries and works across any application, and is also effective where traffic is SSL encrypted. WAN Optimisation FortiOS 4.0 is able to accelerate applications over WAN connections while ensuring multi-threat security enforcement. This is said to increases network performance while reducing bandwidth and server resource requirements. SSL Inspection will increase security and policy control among encrypted traffic streams, inspects otherwise hidden communication and increases protection for secure web and application servers.