Fortinet Now Uniquely Detects, Eliminates Spyware and Other Types of Grayware

SUNNYVALE, Calif., September 14, 2004 - Fortinet - the only provider of ASIC-powered, network-based antivirus firewall systems for real-time network protection - today announced new capabilities to detect and eliminate a wide variety of spyware and related grayware. Fortinet's newest software release, FortiOS™ 2.8, uniquely protects customers against all forms of grayware, including spyware and adware. All new Fortinet FortiGate Antivirus Firewalls now include FortiOS 2.8. There are more than 60,000 FortiGate systems deployed worldwide at more than 2,000 enterprise, service provider and small/medium business sites.

Grayware is an umbrella term applied to a wide range of malicious applications such as spyware, adware and key loggers that are often secretly installed on a user's computer to track and/or report certain information back to an external source without the user's permission or knowledge. Many of the most threatening impacts of grayware, such as usage pattern tracking, invasion of privacy and information theft can remain unseen, as it is installed after browsing Web sites without the user having to consciously download and execute any applications.

"Alleviating spyware on the PC is a mundane and arduous affair and IT personnel are forced to inspect and cleanse each PC independently, placing an added operational task on perpetually overburdened staff members," said Jon Oltsik, Senior Information Security Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. "Installing grayware detection for malicious applications such as spyware and adware on a network security consolidated perimeter device where the private corporate network connects to the public Internet, can help identify and eradicate grayware applications before they reach the end user's computer."

California Homes Blocks Spyware with FortiGate Antivirus Firewalls
At California Homes, one of the largest home builders in California with a total of 300 employees, grayware was infecting its corporate network so severely that employees productivity was greatly reduced, causing the IT team to dedicate time and resources to removing these malicious applications from users' PCs. To solve this problem, California Homes recently chose Fortinet's FortiGate-300 system, including FortiOS 2.8, to block grayware before it enters its high-speed corporate network. Upon initial launch of the FortiGate system, California Homes found an unusually high amount of 48,000 Internet sessions and networked computers that were being controlled by an unauthorized, outside source.

"Our IT folks were spending time they didn't have trying to fight against spyware and clean infected PCs. Since installing Fortinet's FortiGate systems, spyware and adware infections were immediately cut, eradicating the volume and damage caused by spyware due to the system's ability to recognize and block these malicious applications," said Joseph Mann, IT director at California Homes. "Using Fortinet's integrated network security platform, we are no longer spending unnecessary man hours fixing infected PCs, have improved productivity dramatically and can sleep at night with the assurance that this problem is at bay."

Combating Grayware with Fortinet's Integrated Approach
Fortinet uniquely combats grayware by utilizing both a network-based and host-based approach. The network-based approach leverages Fortinet's FortiGate Antivirus Firewall platforms to protect against viruses, worms, Trojans, intrusions, spam, inappropriate Web content - and grayware - in high performance, cost-effective, easy-to-deploy systems. The host-based approach is delivered by Fortinet's powerful FortiClient™ Host Security software, which combines a VPN client, antivirus protection, and a personal firewall, in addition to grayware detection. By uniting antivirus, stateful firewalling, intrusion detection and prevention (IDP), VPN, Web filtering, anti-spam, grayware detection and prevention and traffic shaping into one security platform, Fortinet allows threat information to be shared and coordinated between each security component.

"Spyware, adware, browser hijacking, key logging and phishing are some of the fastest-growing and most dangerous threats on the Internet today primarily because all that is required to become an unknowing victim is a seemingly harmless visit to a Web page," said Philip Kwan, director of product management at Fortinet. "Protecting against these threats requires an integrated approach. FortiOS 2.8's new grayware and antivirus features are combined with IDP and stateful firewall capabilities to create Fortinet's Dynamic Threat Prevention approach, which delivers a higher degree of grayware detection and prevention than other network gateway point products."

For more information about grayware, including an essential guide to blocking grayware before it enters the network, please visit: http://www.fortinet.com/leads/action/leadRequest.do?categoryId=10

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.