By Nirav Shah and Muhammad Abid | January 20, 2022
Cyberattacks are emerging as a global threat, not just to organizations but to the global digital economy. The US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) recently reported that organizations paid out nearly $600 million in ransomware in the first half of 2021, which puts the US on track to surpass the combined payouts of the previous decade. And that’s just the start. Not only is ransomware predicted to increase, but more and different threats are looming on the horizon. So, while the World Economic Forum has estimated costs from cybercrime will come in this year at a staggering $2.2 trillion, that number is likely to increase by nearly 5X to $10.5 trillion by 2025.
Part of this trend is the result of cybercriminals actively targeting today’s expanding and increasingly complex networks. The adoption of multi-cloud networks to distribute and host applications and services, the demand for flexible and ubiquitous connectivity to highly dispersed applications by today’s hybrid workforce, and the push to accelerate digital transformation have not only expanded the attack surface but also created a perfect storm of complexity, lack of visibility, inconsistent security, and poor user experience.
Organizations need solutions designed to address these challenges while providing ubiquitous and comprehensive threat protection without sacrificing flexibility, performance, or user experience.
Securing Your Digital Business Acceleration: Gartner’s 2022 Critical Capabilities for Network Firewalls
The January 2022 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Network Firewall report is an extension of their recently published Magic Quadrant™ for Network Firewalls, in which Fortinet was recognized as a “Leader.” We believe this report offers essential research and analysis to help technology practitioners evaluate vendors based on their performance in various use cases.
Gartner Critical Capabilities report evaluated nineteen Network Firewall vendors, for their performance across nine critical capabilities, with methodologies that assign different weights for each ability. We believe this information is designed to assist organizations in determining which solution will best help them achieve the strongest security posture, best ROI, and optimal operational efficiency for their digital business use case.
Fortinet’s FortiGate solution received the overall highest scores in the Enterprise Data Center, Distributed Enterprise Edge, and SMB Use Cases, and the second-highest score in the Public Cloud Use Case:
This marks the third year in a row that Fortinet has received the highest overall score for the Enterprise Data Center Use Case.
Why it matters Most organizations have critical applications and data that can’t be moved to the cloud for various reasons, such as compliance, control, and strategic business needs. But hosting them on-premises in the data center requires them to be protected from intruders while safely providing access to customers, employees, and partners and keeping pace with user experience expectations and digital acceleration efforts elsewhere.
The FortiGate Network Firewall’s deeply integrated networking and security capabilities protect corporate and customer data and applications as well as the service edge to enable hyperscale security-driven networks.
Distributed Enterprise Use Case
Fortinet received the highest score (3.89/5.0) in the Distributed Enterprise Edge Use Case
Why it matters Digital acceleration is driving WAN transformation. Enterprise Edge security must address rising ransomware and cyberattacks while enabling organizations to confidently adopt multiple clouds and maintain flexible connectivity. Consistent security coupled with reliable user experience allows users and applications to be located anywhere, addressing the needs of today’s highly flexible and mobile networks.
Fortinet’s innovative FortiGate Network Firewall has made us the first vendor to transform and secure the WAN. We were not just the first vendor to add SD-WAN to our NGFW solution. We also pioneered blending SD-WAN connectivity with integrated security—and now, ZTNA capabilities—all powered by a single operating system, FortiOS.
SMB Use Case
Fortinet has received the highest score in the SMB use case (3.95/5.0) two years in a row
Why it matters
Despite their size, SMBs are adopting technology faster than ever, especially as staff becomes more knowledgeable and costs decrease. However, this rapid adoption is increasing their attack surface, and as a result, SMBs require powerful network security to prevent attacks. Fortinet’s FortiGate Network Firewall is designed with simplicity in mind, with entry-level models that enable even small businesses to deploy robust and consistent security both on-premises and in the cloud.
Public Cloud Use Cases
Fortinet received the second-highest score for the Public Cloud (3.87/5.0) Use Case
Why it matters Organizations are accelerating cloud adoption to address growing requirements for agility, scalability, and digital transformation. This invariably leads to multi-cloud adoption, which means that critical business resources and assets are increasingly reliant on secure cloud solutions and infrastructures. However, organizations often end up with a heterogeneous set of security technologies, with disparate cloud security controls in various cloud environments that do not work together as a unified solution.
Fortinet’s virtual FortiGate solutions were not only the first to operate natively on every cloud platform but also use custom-built, turnkey cloud connectors to enable seamless orchestration and consistent policy enforcement end-to-end for data and applications that move between multiple clouds.
Conclusion
As part of the Fortinet Security Fabric, FortiGate Network Firewalls enable and accelerate digital innovation initiatives. Their coordinated threat intelligence sharing and automated protections ensure security for today’s complex and fast-evolving threat landscape without ever compromising on digital innovation, performance, or user experience. In addition to the Fortinet Security Fabric components being fully integrated, they also use Open APIs to extend that interoperability to 450+ partners—streamlining enterprise-wide workflows and enabling customers to build scalable and composable end-to-end security architectures, like Gartner Cybersecurity Mesh Architecture.
Download the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls and the 2022 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Network Firewalls for more information.
Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Network Firewalls, Adam Hils, Rajpreet Kaur, 17 January 2022
Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls, Rajpreet Kaur, Jeremy D'Hoinne, Nat Smith, Adam Hils, 1 November 2021
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