Fortinet is a market leader in the unified threat management field who ships a wide range of network security appliances. Deployed by a substantial percentage of the top companies in the world, the company's flagship FortiGate product incorporates custom-built FortiASIC content and network processors to detect complex, blended threats without degrading network performance.

The company made a strong push into the wireless arena when it unveiled a new enterprise-grade FortiAP access point product line last year. Designed to work in conjunction with existing FortiGate appliances, the new architecture essentially ensures that wireless traffic is subject to analysis and cleansing by Fortinet's UTM engine. To find out how Wi-Fi and network security goes hand-in-hand, I spoke with Patrick Bedwell, VP of product marketing at Fortinet. 

FierceCIO: What is Fortinet's design philosophy with its WLAN products?

Patrick Bedwell: Wireless LAN is an important part of our product strategy. For example, we first announced the inclusion of a wireless controller in 2010, which allows customers who already had one of our products deployed, or am thinking of rolling out a wireless infrastructure, to easily roll-out wireless capabilities; they could simply plug-in their access point to their FortiGate and they have a WLAN. This allowed our customers to save a substantial amount of money, but without having to migrate existing policies across.

In essence, we focus on three keywords: Simple, Secure and Sensible. We keep the design of our wireless (and wired) gear simple, pack in security in the form of UTM capabilities for the widest range of threat protection in the industry, and cost effective sensibility. Fortinet is one of the few vendors that provides an integrated wired and wireless security device, and we provide the broadest range of threat protection available.

FCIO: Is a site survey really necessary when deploying a WLAN?

Bedwell: Customers should have access to a floor plan in the course of planning for a WLAN, though they do not necessarily have to perform a wireless site survey prior to deployment. However, they do need to perform a site survey right after deployment in order to determine that the desired coverage has been achieved. Some of the things to watch out for would be overlapping coverage, external interference, or blind spots that might not be apparent prior to deployment.

FCIO: What are the advantages of incorporating security at the WLAN layer?

Bedwell: Enforcing security involves detection and mitigation phases. When network clients connect using Wi-Fi, detection can only be done at the WLAN layer. By incorporating security right into our hardware, Fortinet equipment is able to detect and prevent clients from connecting (mitigation) right at the WLAN layer.

FCIO: Is it possible to build a truly secure Wi-Fi deployment?

Bedwell: If we look back at some of the early protocols such as WEP, it is indeed amazing that we ever relied on them in the first place. The difference between now and then is the increasing availability of high performance wireless systems coupled with much better encryption algorithms. 

Of course, encryption is just part of the overall story; the bigger picture is really about achieving secure access and content protection. Well, this is exactly the problem we address by bringing the various security technologies in FortiGate to bear on Wi-Fi traffic, including application control and intrusion prevention. Simply put: We allow our customers to deploy various layers of security--to deploy as much secure technology as they wish to ensure secure WLAN access and complete content protection.

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