Chunghwa Telecom Secures Broadband Communication Services Using Fortinet’s FortiGate Antivirus Firewall Platforms

SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 11, 2004 – Fortinet – the only provider of ASICpowered, network-based antivirus firewall systems for real-time network protection – today announced that Chunghwa Telecom Global is leveraging the power and flexibility of the FortiGate family of antivirus firewalls to protect its corporate network and ensure secure broadband communication services to its consumer and enterprise customers. Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) Global is the U.S. subsidiary of Chunghwa Telecom, the largest telecommunications carrier in Taiwan. CHT Global evaluated competitive solutions from other vendors such as NetScreen (Nasdaq: NSCN) and selected the FortiGate 3000 and FortiGate 3600 units based on superior performance, management and security capabilities.

CHT Global’s charter is to provide secure broadband voice and data communications for consumers and managed security services for Chinese-based enterprises operating in the United States. To carry this out, the carrier required a bullet-proof security solution that could protect customers from the growing number of complicated, blended Internet attacks and offer real-time performance to maintain broadband connection rates. At the same time, CHT Global also needed to ensure this same level of security for its own corporate resources and required a solution that was easy to deploy and manage and offered a good return on investment. After testing and evaluating products from NetScreen and others, CHT Global found its solution in Fortinet’s FortiGate family of integrated antivirus firewalls.

“We needed comprehensive protection but couldn’t afford to have security be the bottleneck on the network. In evaluating our options, it was clear that we would get much better performance from a hardware-based solution and better security from an integrated platform as opposed to multiple disparate products,” said Liwen Chen, President of Chunghwa Telecom Global. “We chose Fortinet’s FortiGate solutions for the superior levels of performance and protection they provided. Since implementing the Fortinet solution, we’ve already experienced a significant reduction in the number of viruses and attacks we’ve encountered, and have decreased the amount of IT resources required to manage our firewall and antivirus deployments.”

Following a quick and easy deployment, Fortinet’s FortiGate 3000 and 3600 platforms now protect CHT Global’s corporate and branch offices, as well as enterprise customers of its Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) offerings and consumer subscribers of its broadband voice and data services. The carrier plans to expand its FortiGate solution in 2H 04 to deliver an even broader array of managed security services to customers.

Meeting the Security Performance Challenge
As security attacks increasingly use high-speed networks to spread, performance has become the most important feature of any security product that analyzes real-time network traffic. Fortinet’s award-winning FortiGate™ series of ASIC-accelerated
Antivirus Firewalls detect and eliminate the most damaging and dangerous content-based threats at the network edges without degrading network performance. The products’ ASIC-powered antivirus protection strips harmful, content-based attacks – including viruses, worms and Trojans – from real-time Web traffic as well as email messages at the network edge, even from within encrypted VPN tunnels, before these threats can reach vital servers and desktops.

The FortiGate family of network-based antivirus firewall systems is kept up to date with the latest antivirus attack and intrusion protection signature databases by Fortinet’s FortiProtect Network. The FortiProtect Network provides around the clock, automatic, instantaneous updates to FortiGate units worldwide – ensuring CHT Global and all other customers have the most up-to-date security available.

“Organizations of all sizes and types are demanding improved security but are unwilling to suffer delays in their network applications in order to have it,” said Richard Kagan, vice president of marketing at Fortinet. “Fortinet’s FortiGate Antivirus Firewalls were built from the ground up to address today’s sophisticated Internet security threats by delivering complete content protection without any impact to performance – ultimately translating into fewer security breaches, lower IT costs and demonstrable ROI for enterprises of all sizes.”

About Chunghwa Telecom Global
Chunghwa Telecom Global is a subsidiary of Chunghwa Telecom, the largest telecommunications carrier in Taiwan. Serving the Chinese consumer and enterprise markets in the United States, Chunghwa Telecom Global provides broadband, voice communication and managed services. These services include VPN, security and communications applications. Established in 2003, Chunghwa Telecom Global has offices in Los Angeles and San Jose, Calif.

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 Chunghwa Customer Win Release - 4 “Visionaries” category in the 2003 Gartner Enterprise Firewall Magic Quadrant, Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.