Fortinet

Fortinet

File:Fortinet logo.gif
Company type	Privately held company
Industry	Network security & Computer security
Founded	2000
Headquarters	Sunnyvale, California + over 25 Fortinet offices worldwide
Key people	Founder and CEO: Ken Xie Founder and CTO: Michael Xie CFO: Ken Goldman
Products	Unified threat management (UTM), Firewalls, Antivirus, Intrusion-prevention system, Antispyware, Antispam, VPN, Virtualization, Web filtering, Content-control software -- all with Common Criteria EAL4+ certification, 7 ICSA security certifications, NSS certified (UTM)
Number of employees	1,000+ (Q1 2008)
Website	www.fortinet.com

Fortinet is a private company that is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that specializes in network security appliances. Fortinet’s flagship network security product line is sold under the brand name of FortiGate.

Corporate Overview

Fortinet was founded in 2000 by Ken Xie, the founder and former president and CEO of NetScreen (later sold to Juniper for more than $3.5 billion). Fortinet has raised $100 million in five rounds of venture capital investment from Acorn Campus, DEFTA Partners, DCM-Doll Capital Management, Fortunetech Partners, LLC., Forval Creative Inc., Meritech Capital Partners and Redpoint Ventures.

The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with customer support, development and sales facilities throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Fortinet sells its systems and subscription service products through a network of channel partners worldwide.

Fortinet has a partnership with Hewlett-Packard's ProCurve Networking division that [1] highlights the growing integration of networking and security technologies. Fortinet is the first vendor to join the ProCurve Alliance, HP's effort to push open-architecture solutions from other vendors that have been tested and certified for interoperability. Fortinet will weave its FortiGate unified threat management product into ProCurve's line of layer 3 switching products.

Fortinet contributes to the security community through its Global Security Research Team. An example of this is Fortinet’s membership in the Microsoft Virus Information Alliance (VIA) [2].

Controversies

According to the OpenNet Initiative [3], FortiGuard is used by the dictatorship of Myanmar (Burma) to block communications critical of the regime carried over the internet, a system known as the Myanmar Wide Web [4]. Fortinet has promised to investigate the allegations, and the implied violation of US Government sanctions against the regime, noting that the software may have been sold to the regime by a third party [5]; however, the company has yet to make a definitive statement on the matter. Meanwhile, the Myanmar government features its adoption of the Fortinet firewall on its official website [6] with other photos showing a Fortinet sales director presenting a gift to the Myanmar Prime Minister during a ceremony [7].

In 2005, the gpl-violations.org project uncovered evidence that Fortinet had used GPL code in its products against the terms of the license, and used cryptographic tools to conceal the violation. The violation was alleged to have occurred in the FortiOS system, which the gpl-violations.org project said contained elements of the Linux kernel. In response, a Munich court granted a temporary injunction against the company, preventing it from selling products until they were in compliance with the necessary license terms [8]. As a result Fortinet made parts of FortiOS source code available free in compliance with GPL licensing [9].

Also in 2005, a United States International Trade Commission judge issued a preliminary ruling against Fortinet in a patent infringement action brought by Trend Micro over a computer virus filtering patent. Fortinet later settled out of court [10].