Honda Automobile (Thailand) Drives Security Enhancements with Fortinet's FortiGate™ Antivirus Firewalls

SUNNYVALE, Calif., August 4, 2004 - Fortinet - the only provider of ASIC-powered, network-based antivirus firewall systems for real-time network protection – today announced that Honda Automobile (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (HATC), Honda Worldwide's automobile production and sales subsidiary in Thailand, has enhanced its network security infrastructure with Fortinet FortiGate™ Antivirus Firewalls to protect its corporate network against an increasingly sophisticated network threat environment. Honda Automobile (Thailand) is deploying a range of FortiGate systems to protect seven sites, including its Thailand headquarters which houses 2,700 employees.

Honda's security enhancements were prompted by an increased concern with blended threats - viruses and worms that use more than one method of attack - which have increased in frequency and severity and were hard to defend against using the traditional network security solutions the company previously had in place. In seeking and evaluating solutions from a variety of security vendors, Honda selected Fortinet's FortiGate Antivirus Firewall systems for their ability to provide complete content protection for blended and other types of threats.

Additionally, Honda was impressed with the price/performance of the FortiGate products, which deliver a 5-10X increase in performance over similarly-priced solutions. This is achieved by Fortinet's unique, ASIC-based architecture which analyzes network content and behavior in real-time, enabling all key network services - including Web applications - to be screened for both network and content-level threats without impacting network performance.

Another important factor in Honda Automobile's purchase decision was the true integration of multiple security functions offered by the FortiGate systems - including firewall, antivirus, virtual private networking (VPN), content filtering, intrusion detection/prevention, anti-spam and traffic shaping -- and the ability to centrally-manage all the systems. This enables the highest-levels of security while reducing the administrative time and effort that would otherwise be required with separate point solutions.

"Defending against today's attack environment with the highest-levels of network security and performance shouldn't have to be an administrative burden or cost a fortune," said Matthew Young III, Fortinet's vice president for Asia Pacific. "Fortinet's FortiGate products are fast gaining popularity among companies of all sizes, in all industries around the world because they are comparatively inexpensive, easy to deploy and maintain, and provide complete protection against new and existing threats."

FortiGate Antivirus Firewalls are the industry's only ASIC-based integrated security platforms which 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. In addition to providing application level protection, the FortiGate systems deliver a full range of network-level services - firewall, VPN, intrusion detection and traffic shaping - delivering a complete network protection services in dedicated, easily managed platforms.

For more information on Fortinet's FortiGate Antivirus Firewalls and other Fortinet products, please visit: http://www.fortinet.com/products

About Honda Automobile (Thailand) (http://www.honda.co.th)
Honda Automobile (Thailand) Co., Ltd. was formed in 1999, by a merger between Honda Cars Manufacturing (Thailand) Co., Ltd., the automobile manufacturer, and Honda Cars (Thailand) Co., Ltd., the authorized distributor of Honda cars in Thailand. Today, the company is the largest supplier of passenger cars in Thailand, with sales of 69,069 cars in the year 2002.

About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)
Fortinet's award-winning FortiGate™ series of ASIC-accelerated antivirus firewalls, winner of the 2004 Security Product of the Year Award from Network Computing Magazine and 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 e-mail and Web traffic such as viruses, worms, intrusions, inappropriate Web content and more in real time – without degrading network performance. FortiGate systems are the only security products that are quadruple-certified by the ICSA (antivirus, firewall, IPSec, NIDS), and deliver a full range of network-level and application-level services in integrated, easily managed platforms. Named to the Red Herring Top 100 Private Companies, Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.