Fortinet Serves as a Founding Partner of World Economic Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity

As first cybersecurity founding partner of the Centre for Cybersecurity, partnership demonstrates Fortinet’s continued commitment to innovation and collaboration to combat global cybercrime

Fortinet, a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cyber security solutions, announced the company has been named the first cybersecurity founding partner of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Centre for Cybersecurity and CEO Ken Xie will serve as a member of the Centre for Cybersecurity Advisory Board.

Commenting on this, Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman of the Board, and CEO, Fortinet said; “We are proud to be the first cybersecurity company named a founding partner of the World Economic Forum Centre for Cybersecurity and look forward to collaborating with global leaders from the private and public sectors through our shared commitment to deliver a response to the growing global cybersecurity threat. The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity is important for global multi-stakeholder collaboration, and serving as a founding partner of the Centre is yet another step forward in our own mission to secure the largest enterprise, service provider, and government organizations in the world.”

World Economic Forum and Fortinet both believe that the global threat to our digital economy requires a global response. To respond to that threat and shape the future of cybersecurity, WEF has established the Centre for Cybersecurity, a global network of partners from business, government, international organizations, academia, and civil society to collaborate on cybersecurity challenges. Fortinet’s partnership with the Centre is further reinforcement of the company’s longstanding commitment to public and private sector collaboration. In conjunction with the Centre for Cybersecurity, Fortinet will continue its efforts to collaborate, innovate and develop powerful global solutions to reduce global cyberattacks, contain current and future cyberattacks, and deter cybercrime.

Fortinet firmly believes in the Centre’s objectives, and is also committed to helping lead the following initiatives:

1)      Building trust across international borders

• New technologies have brought forward productivity gains and opportunity, but have also extended the threat surface, exposing citizens, consumers, companies, and countries to new threats and vulnerabilities. To fight increasing cybercrime, the global community needs to overcome several major challenges, including lack of trust and cooperation.
• As the digital and physical worlds become more interconnected, actionable threat intelligence with global visibility is the best way to move from being reactive to proactive in a world where cybercrime has no borders. No single organization has a complete view into the security landscape, which is why sharing and collaboration between public and private organizations is critical.
• Building trust is about more than technology and innovation. Fortinet helps shape the future of threat information standards and protocols through ongoing collaboration with global public safety and industry organizations.

2)      New opportunities for populations and workforces in the digital economy 

• Address the shortage of cybersecurity skills in a scalable way: creating a workforce that is relied upon by nearly everyone across both public and private, and help countries with a nascent digital economy to jumpstart its tech sector with an already-indoctrinated cybersecurity-smart population.
• To help address the cyber skills gap, Fortinet offers a worldwide Network Security Expert (NSE) program, an eight-level certification program aimed at advancing aspiring and technical professionals in their skills and knowledge of today’s modern cybersecurity landscape.

3)      Protection of Critical Infrastructures relied upon by both developed and developing countries

• An initiative is needed to ensure the safety and reliability of the infrastructures that provide critical services (e.g., energy, water, transportation) to large populations. Such infrastructures use technology called “Operational Technology (OT)” that is increasingly targeted by nations states and criminals, since OT is becoming more connected to traditional IT systems, and provides adversaries with the ability to affect large populations or economies without resorting to bullets and bombs.

4)      International norms of behavior in cyberspace

• Work to establish basic principles of acceptable behavior in cyberspace that stabilizes the environment, enables developed and developing countries to pursue the benefits of digital transformation, and create confidence in cyberspace’s future.
• This also includes helping to create standards for independent testing of cybersecurity products/solutions, to ease the decision making of security solutions by purchasers.
• Fortinet has always believed that third-party testing of security products and solutions plays a critical role in thwarting cybercriminals and enabling IT teams to evolve their security infrastructures appropriately. Organizations need effective security solutions that meet an evolving set of requirements, and third-party testing is essential for guiding decisions in selecting and implementing those tools most appropriate for their unique network demands and business objectives.

For organizations addressing digital transformation, many of the current test methodologies being used by third-party labs and testing centers provide critical insight into emerging requirements and enable them to evaluate potential solutions for features such as interoperability and the ability to share and respond to threat intelligence as part of a coordinated response.