Sunnyvale, Calif., June 7, 2004 - Fortinet - the only provider of ASIC-powered, network-based antivirus firewall systems for real-time network protection - today announced the company's FortiGate™ Antivirus Firewalls have entered the final phase of the certification process for Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL-4). This certification assures customers that the award-winning FortiGate units have gone through a long and rigorous testing process, and conform to standards sanctioned by the International Standards Organization. Fortinet anticipates completion of Common Criteria EAL-4 certification in Q1 2005.

Because the FortiGate systems are in evaluation, government agencies and other organizations requiring the Common Criteria EAL-4 certification can begin to consider the units for purchase. Organizations making technology planning decisions can check the evaluation status of FortiGate systems at: www.cse-cst.gc.ca/en/services/common_criteria/ongoing_evals.html.

"The purpose of independent and impartial Common Criteria evaluations is to provide confidence and trust, and offer proof that a security product or system actually does what a vendor claims," said Paul Zatychec, director of the EWA-Canada evaluation lab. "We will be conducting detailed and stringent evaluations of Fortinet's FortiGate Antivirus Firewalls. After extensive testing that involves a comprehensive and formally repeatable means of confirming product claims, Fortinet customers around the globe will be assured the products live up to their promise."

The Common Criteria for IT Security Evaluations (CC), also known as ISO standard 15408, was developed by the national security organizations of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and The Netherlands. It provides a broad range of evaluation criteria for many types of commercial and nationally-sensitive government-use IT security products. EAL-4 is the highest mutually recognized certification level.

CC evaluations involve formal rigorous analysis and testing to examine all security aspects of a product or system. Extensive testing activities involve a comprehensive and formally repeatable process, confirming that the security product functions as claimed by the manufacturer. Security weaknesses and potential vulnerabilities are specifically examined during an evaluation.

Fortinetå's award-winning FortiGate Antivirus Firewalls combine the power of antivirus, firewall, intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, virtual private networking (VPN), content filtering and traffic shaping in single, easy to deploy and manage platform. The devices 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.

"As the only company with four concurrent ICSA certifications for our FortiGate Antivirus Firewalls, Fortinet is clearly committed to the importance of third party testing and validation of security products," said ichard Kagan, vice president of marketing at Fortinet. "Security is a business imperative, and customers must feel confident that the security products that protect their employees, revenues and reputations have been put through their paces. We look forward to the completion of our testing."