SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jan. 27, 2004 – Fortinet today announced the company is helping thousands of customers around the globe to defend their networks and critical computer systems against the ravages of the MyDoom worm that is currently plaguing the Internet. Initially identified on Monday January 26, 2004, MyDoom, also known as Novarg and Mimail., spreads via email and by copying itself to any available shared directories used by Kazaa. It harvests addresses from infected machines, and uses words like 'test', 'hi' and 'hello' in the subject line. For unsuspecting users, emails may lie in wait in their email inbox until unknowingly or unintentionally being unleashed. Fortinet is helping enterprises, small businesses and even managed service providers battle the virus through network-based antivirus (AV) protection that screens emails at the gateway, before they are ever allowed to reach an unsuspecting user’s computer.

“Already we are seeing evidence that this is the most serious outbreak of a worm or virus since the SoBig.F outbreak, and indications are that this may just be the beginning,” said Joe Wells, chief antivirus scientist at Fortinet. “This worm is very malicious and very tricky. The only way to truly protect systems from this kind of outbreak is to move the defense perimeter out to the edge of the network, to ensure that end-users never have to make that choice as to whether or not to open an email that might be infected. arely does a user launch a virus or worm on purpose; generally they are simply unaware. But that can be a costly mistake for businesses that continue to rely on host-based AV to protect their organizations.”

Fortinet’s FortiProtect™ Services ensure that FortiGate users are protected against new threats in real time. As has been the case with other fast-spreading outbreaks, all registered FortiGate customers whose systems are configured to accept automatic “push” updates receive antivirus signature database updates for this attack and others within minutes of Fortinet’s release of a new attack database by the Fortinet Threat esponse Team. The updates of antivirus and intrusion attack detection databases are delivered from the Fortiesponse Distribution Network, which ensures that FortiGate units worldwide are updated in real time in response to new attacks, and are able to detect and prevent threats from entering customer networks, without waiting for the unit or an administrator to request an update.

“The Fortiesponse Network automatically updated all of our FortiGate units with protection against the MyDoom attack, and saved our managed services customers a lot of time, money and aggravation,” said Steve Goldsby, CEO of the Montgomery, Ala.- based security consultancy Integrated Computer Solutions Inc. “This is a critical selling point for us when we talk with prospective customers about managed security services. Invariably, if they are going to give up some level of control, they need to trust that their protection will be as good or better than if they were managing it themselves. Being able to show them how the Fortinet systems we have in place offer them unmatched protection puts their mind at ease.”

All models in the FortiGate product family employ Fortinet’s unique FortiASIC™ content processing chip and the powerful, secure, FortiOS™ operating system to achieve breakthrough price/performance. The unique, ASIC-based architecture goes beyond “deep packet inspection,” which can miss many attacks, and employs complete content protection technology to reassemble and analyze content and behavior across hundreds or thousands of packets while maintaining real-time performance. The result is a combination of services and performance that cannot be matched using conventional layer 3/layer 4 networking architectures, or by deploying software applications on conventional computer systems.

For more information on the MyDoom worm and other content security threats, visit the Fortiesponse portal at http://www.fortinet.com/FortiesponseCenter.