Fortinet Joins Microsoft Information Alliance

Fortinet Joins Microsoft Virus Information Alliance

Fortinet Global Security Research Team to Work with Microsoft to Improve Response to Critical Vulnerabilities

Sydney, May 17th 2007 – Fortinet®, the pioneer and leading provider of unified threat management (UTM) solutions, today announced that it has joined the Microsoft Virus Information Alliance (VIA), a centralised resource for Internet users seeking information about the latest virus threats affecting Microsoft technology.

The VIA is comprised only of industry leading security vendors upon whom Microsoft relies to provide valuable technical information on newly discovered viruses. As part of this alliance, the Fortinet Global Security Research Team will work to further empower Microsoft to more quickly address vulnerabilities and communicate solutions to its customers, while also allowing Fortinet to more quickly deliver threat defense to its own customers who also use Microsoft technologies.

“As cyber criminals continue their unrelenting attacks, it is our responsibility as security vendors to work together to find innovative collaboration strategies and solutions,” said Richard Stiennon, chief marketing officer for Fortinet. “For this reason, alliances such as Microsoft VIA have become critical for all security customers, who rely on quick, efficient and effective identification of and defense against these attacks.”

The VIA offers recommended best practices for preventing malicious attacks, information about specific viruses, how-to articles and links to other antivirus resources on its Web site. In addition to providing the latest reports on medium- and high-severity virus incidents, the VIA Web site allows Internet users to quickly and easily refer to their preferred antivirus vendor, in this case Fortinet, for more-detailed technical information about specific viruses and their eradication, as well as customer support.

“Microsoft is pleased to work with Fortinet and all members of the Virus Information Alliance (VIA) part of the Microsoft Security Response Alliance to continue providing customers with the information they need to help protect themselves from malicious threats,” said Mark Miller, director of the Security Response Center at Microsoft Corp. “Security is an industry-wide issue, and Microsoft remains committed to continuing to work closely with industry partners toward the common goal of improving security for all computer users.”

For more information on the Microsoft Security Response Alliance, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/security/msra/.

About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)

Fortinet is the pioneer and market-leading provider of ASIC-accelerated unified threat management systems, which are used by enterprises and service providers to increase their security while reducing total operating costs. Fortinet solutions were built from the ground up to integrate multiple levels of security protection—including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, Web content filtering, VPN, spyware prevention and antispam—providing customers a way to help protect against multiple threats as well as blended threats. Leveraging a custom ASIC and unified interface, Fortinet solutions offer advanced security functionality that scales from remote office to chassis-based solutions with integrated management and reporting. Fortinet solutions have won multiple awards around the world and are the only security products that are certified eight times over by ICSA Labs (firewall, antivirus, IPSec, SSL, IDS, client antivirus detection, cleaning and antispyware). Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.

# # #

Fortinet is a registered trademark of Fortinet, Inc. Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiOS, FortiAnalyzer, FortiASIC, FortiCare, FortiManager, FortiWiFi, FortiGuard, FortiClient, and FortiReporter are trademarks of the Fortinet, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks referred to herein are the property of their respective owners.

© Scoop Media