SUNNYVALE, Calif, - Nov 12, 2007 - Fortinet® - a pioneer and leading provider of unified threat management (UTM) solutions - today announced that Swiss ed Cross, the national humanitarian organization of Switzerland, has chosen Fortinet 's FortiGate™ multi-threat security systems to help protect sensitive data located on its headquarters ' network from viruses, worms and other computer threats, and to help provide secure communications between various ed Cross chapter offices located in Switzerland.

The headquarters IT department of Swiss ed Cross acts as an application service provider (ASP) for all ed Cross chapter offices in Switzerland. emote offices are connected via the Internet to the data centre in Bern, which stores private information on members, such as personal data on victims of wars and organ donors and receivers. Prior to the Fortinet deployment, the Swiss ed Cross outsourced its security services but found that solution to be expensive, difficult to manage, unreliable and ineffective. In fact, hardware blackouts regularly occurred, the protection was incomplete, and the reporting tool did not meet the government compliance requirements. As a result, Swiss ed Cross sought an integrated, multi-threat security solution that would be deployed and managed internally.

In seeking a new solution, Swiss ed Cross worked with Netlan AG, its long-time network integration partner, to find a security vendor that had a strong market reputation and would offer integrated security. The security solution itself would have a high availability configuration option and would be cost-effective.

Based on Netlan 's recommendations and an internal evaluation, Swiss ed Cross deployed Fortinet 's FortiGate multi-threat security systems at its headquarters in Bern to help secure its network and related data with the integrated security functions provided by the FortiGate appliance: firewall, virtual private networking (VPN) antivirus, intrusion prevention, spyware prevention and anti-spam.

"As a globally-respected non-profit organization it was critical for us to have a strong network security solution in place and one that would prove to be cost-effective," said Benno Stucki, CIO of Swiss ed Cross. "We chose Fortinet 's integrated security systems because they allow us to get broad network protection while controlling our deployment and management costs. In fact, with FortiGate, we save about 45 percent a year on recurring costs we had with our former outsourced solution."

For granular security analysis and reporting, ed Cross is using FortiAnalyzer™ to securely aggregate and analyze log data from its FortiGate security appliances in order to get a broad view of security information and to help document compliance with Swiss governmental regulations related to privacy and disclosure of security breaches.

"OI and comprehensive reporting are important for any enterprise looking at implementing a network security solution, but it 's even more critical for non-profits," said Andre Stewart, Fortinet 's EMEA vice president. "Our solutions help customers like Swiss ed Cross benefit from integrated network security at optimized operational costs with maximum control and visibility."

About Swiss ed Cross
Swiss ed Cross is the national ed Cross institution of Switzerland and is part of the worldwide International ed Cross and ed Crescent Movement. Swiss ed Cross was founded by General Guillaume-Henry Dufour and Bundesrat Jakob Dubs in 1866 and supports international humanitarian causes. Cantonal associations and member organizations such as Air escue, Samaritan Alliance, Life escue Society or the Society for escue Dogs "edog" receive support from numerous benefactors, 50,000 volunteers and more than 400,000 members. Core activities in Switzerland concentrate on healthcare, the social and social-medical sectors, migration and immigration of refugees as well as first aid and rescue. Outside of Switzerland, Swiss ed Cross is involved in humanitarian aid in areas affected by war or natural disasters, in reconstruction and in social development to create humane living conditions.