Fortinet Expands Reach into Asia to Meet Growing Demand for its Integrated Network Security Solutions

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 23, 2004 -- Fortinet – the only provider of ASICpowered, network-based antivirus firewall systems for real-time network protection – today announced it has expanded its operations across the ASEAN region with the opening of offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and India. These new offices broaden Fortinet’s presence in Asia -- which already includes offices in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan – enabling the company to meet the growing demand for its integrated network security solutions and provide local sales and support services to a range of customers, including B.M. Media, China Telecom, Daewoo, Korea Telecom, Toshiba and more.

The new offices form part of a region-wide strategy to drive adoption of Fortinet’s award-winning FortiGateTM product line. FortiGate systems are hardware-based devices that scan traffic and eliminate threats without any noticeable reduction in network performance or delays in the delivery of email, Web downloads or other critical traffic for enterprises of all sizes.

“The addition of India, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand to our regional network will enable us to provide local sales and technical support to the growing numbers of customers who are deploying our integrated solutions,” said Matt Young, Fortinet’s
vice president of sales and general manager for Asia-Pacific. “Fortinet has taken the concept of network security to a new dimension with its complete network protection systems – evidenced by the thousands of units shipped in 2003 to customers worldwide,” he added. “We expect sales in Asia to show continued strong growth as customers realize that conventional security systems, such as firewalls and host-based antivirus software, lack the dedicated hardware required to perform the content reassembly, and application-level screening necessary to effectively detect and defeat threats.”

Combating Today’s Threats: The FortiGate Family of Solutions
Fortinet’s FortiGate products are the world’s first and only ASIC-accelerated devices that can screen the full range of Internet traffic to deliver complete network-level and content-level protection at the network edge with real-time performance. Each member of the scalable FortiGate family is a dedicated, easily managed device that delivers a full suite of capabilities, which include ICSA-certified virus protection, intrusion detection, firewall and IPSec VPN, along with Web and email content filtering and traffic shaping functions.

“Hackers, spammers and others have become more sophisticated at circumventing traditional software-based and even hardware-based security solutions, leaving most organizations dangerously exposed to content-based attacks from real-time traffic and Web applications,” added Young. “MyDoom and other recent virus attacks have highlighted how, even with the most up-to-date antivirus software installed, enterprises are still vulnerable to attack. In addition, spam is rapidly becoming the main source of discontent for enterprises in terms of loss of productivity, efficiency and security. Fortinet’s FortiGate product line has proven to many companies how these and other issues can be cost-effectively controlled and combated while maintaining the integrity of the network.”

FortiGate units are kept up-to-date against the latest threats via the FortiProtect™ Distribution Network, which automatically delivers updated antivirus and intrusion detection signature databases to FortiGate systems worldwide. This means that detection occurs within the network before attacks reach downstream PCs and servers, and eliminates the dependence on individual users to update their antivirus software and protects the organization against inadvertent distribution of threats by employees.

About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)
Fortinet's award-winning FortiGate™ series of ASIC-accelerated antivirus firewalls, winner of the 2003 Networking Industry Awards Firewall Product of the Year, are the new generation of real-time network protection systems. They detect and eliminate the most damaging, content-based threats from email and Web traffic such as viruses, worms, intrusions, inappropriate Web content and more in real time – without degrading network performance. FortiGate systems, the only security products that are quadruple-certified by the ICSA (antivirus, firewall, IPSec, NIDS), deliver a full range of network-level and application-level services in integrated, easily managed platforms. Named to the “Visionaries” category in the 2003 Gartner Enterprise Firewall Magic Quadrant, Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.