Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, today introduced its new free Information Security Awareness and Training service for organizations looking to educate employees about the increasing risks of cyber attacks. The Information Security Awareness and Training service – the latest initiative as part of the Network Security Expert (NSE) Training Institute – is for any organization looking to implement or replace their information security awareness program and was designed to align to NIST guidelines for NIST 800-50  and NIST 800-16. Additionally, NSE Certifications – which are comprised of 8 levels – have qualified for (ISC)² credit for individuals looking to maintain their CISSP credentials. This credit furthers the value NSE Certifications provide current and future security professionals.  

Rob Rashotte, VP of Global Training and Technical Field Enablement at Fortinet

“Organizations need to ensure their employees know how to identify and protect against all types of cybersecurity threats. From 2018 to 2020 the number of insider threats increased 47% according to a Ponemon Institute Report, making these threats a top concern. At the same time, IT professionals are constantly on the quest for continued learning opportunities to refresh their security skillsets. To address both these needs, Fortinet is rolling out a free Information Security Awareness and Training service for organizations, as well as additional continued learning incentives for IT and security professionals. These latest efforts build on Fortinet’s ongoing commitment to closing the cybersecurity skills gap and our Corporate Social Responsibility work.”

Advancing Cyber Awareness and Skills Through the NSE Training Institute

Today, Fortinet is expanding its NSE Training Institute’s free training offerings with the introduction of the Information Security Awareness and Training service. More about this new service and other recent initiatives to address the industry’s skills gap below:

• Free Information Security Awareness and Training service for organizations: With social engineering attacks continuing to plague organizations, CISOs realize the importance of prioritizing employee training as part of their cybersecurity strategies to help address insider threats. A recent study found that 68% of organizations feel moderately to extremely vulnerable to insider attacks. In addition to designing a security architecture that protects against these insider attackers, CISOs and executives also need to increase their employees’ cyber awareness to ensure employees can identify threats and not fall victim to attackers. To help organizations address this, Fortinet offers a free Information Security Awareness and Training service that has been developed by some of the best cybersecurity training experts in the world. The training component of the service consists of five self-paced mandatory modules that are focused on key attack vectors and best practices. Each of the modules end with a quiz to test mastery of content. A library of awareness resources including posters, email templates, checklists and others, helps to ensure that cybersecurity best practices are always top of mind. The administrator dashboard allows the organization to keep track of employee completion progress, ensuring compliance with company policies. This turnkey service ensures employees are equipped with the knowledge necessary to avoid phishing, baiting, tech support scams and other social engineering attacks that commonly jeopardize organizations’ security posture.

• NSE training courses qualify for (ISC)² credits for continued learning: Courses in Fortinet’s eight-level certification program, as well as additional training courses, will now count toward credits for individuals looking to maintain their Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) or other accreditations with (ISC)². This collaboration will further propel security professionals seeking continued learning opportunities to keep their skills relevant and up-to-date in the face of a rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape. Fortinet has an agreement with (ISC)² to offer CPE credits for NSE training courses, Fast Tracks which are available to customers and partners, webinars and other online or in-person educational sessions for the next three years. (ISC)² will consider submissions based on one hour of Fortinet’s training and education initiatives equaling 1 CPE credit, with a maximum of 8 per day.

• Closing the skills gap with NSE Certifications: The NSE Training Institute’s flagship NSE Certification Program recently reached a significant milestone, issuing more than half a million certifications worldwide. With its eight levels of certifications, the NSE Certification Program bridges the cybersecurity skills gap, from cybersecurity fundamental education courses (NSE 1-3), technical product training (NSE 4-6), advanced solution-based training (NSE 7) and the elite cybersecurity expert recognition (NSE 8). NSE level 8 is the highest certification designation with 381 individuals having earned NSE 8 to date, demonstrating mastery in extremely complex network security concepts by leveraging multiple solutions from Fortinet’s Security Fabric portfolio.

Fortinet’s Free NSE Training Creates Additional Cybersecurity Career Pathways

In the wake of the health pandemic, Fortinet made all its self-paced advanced NSE security courses available for free enabling anyone to learn new skills or augment existing skills – from IT professionals to students to veterans and job seekers. As organizations rapidly transitioned to a remote workforce, which requires specialized skills to properly secure remote access and new environments being spun up, Fortinet saw a significant uptick in demand for its NSE training and certifications.

By extending access to its NSE training with free courses, Fortinet sought to create more career pathways for those wanting to further advance their security knowledge or start a career in cybersecurity. These free training courses also prepare learners toward a path to receive Fortinet’s award-winning NSE Certifications to further help them stand out to employers and spur career growth. A recent Fortinet skills gap survey found that 82% of organizations prefer to hire candidates with certifications and 94% of respondents believe their certifications have better prepared them for their current security role.

“Having achieved Fortinet’s NSE level 8 certification has provided me comprehensive and expert knowledge of network security design, configuration, and troubleshooting for complex networks. As a result, when I’m talking about certain architectures or implementing certain specific features, customers and prospects have increased confidence in my capabilities and knowledge that has been assessed by Fortinet, further demonstrating my competency. Ultimately, Fortinet’s training and certification program is successfully helping develop more security professionals as the demand for security has outpaced the number of people entering the market.”

– Matthew Watkinson, chief security architect at Secure Sense

Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), a leader in enterprise cloud computing, today announced findings of a new report analyzing key challenges and opportunities with hybrid cloud adoption. While most see hybrid cloud as the ideal IT model, the report showed that many struggle to adopt it — with 70% of organizations believing that their transformation is taking longer than expected. However, the goal is clear: nearly all respondents (95%) think their organization would benefit from an optimal hybrid implementation providing consistent IT constructs and operations across multiple clouds, eliminating many of the challenges they currently face ranging from operational silos to staffing shortages.

As businesses everywhere struggle to adapt to a new reality, one thing is becoming even clearer: flexibility is crucial to business success. Whether enterprises need to leverage public cloud to deliver remote desktops quickly, consolidate disaster recovery sites, move workloads to a private cloud to stave off public cloud capacity concerns, or take advantage of on-demand capacity bursting, the current global situation has emphasized the need for an adaptable IT infrastructure for many businesses. But flexibility no longer means using both public and private clouds — it means having a consistent experience, tooling and operational practices across multiple clouds to dramatically simplify the ability to move applications and data to the most appropriate cloud environment.

“Today, modern organizations need to lead with flexibility, and a critical aspect of this is decentralizing resources to make them more readily available,” said Aaron White, Regional Sales Director – Middle East at Nutanix. “By using multiple clouds, whether public, private or at the edge, businesses can simply bring their IT infrastructure where it is most needed. But, as we saw in the research, this flexibility is only possible with consistent constructs, operations and tooling across multiple clouds, making a hybrid cloud environment ideal.”

The report, commissioned by Nutanix and created by independent market research firm Vanson Bourne, analyzed key challenges businesses are currently facing when managing both public and private cloud infrastructures. The company surveyed 650 IT decision-makers from multiple industries, business sizes and geographies in the Americas; Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) regions.

Additional findings include:

• Public Cloud Alone is Not Always the Answer: Public cloud revolutionized the IT industry, offering more agility and operational efficiency. And while it’s ideal for some applications and workloads, it’s not for others, leading businesses to embrace a hybrid infrastructure. According to the research, the majority of respondents have concerns about running business-critical applications, those most vital to their business, on public cloud, specifically around reliability (75%), portability (73%), and cost (72%). Additionally, some are simply unable to move their business-critical applications, due to complexity or cost. For example, the need to re-architect or re-platform applications (75%) and the complexity of the migration (71%) are top concerns preventing respondents from porting applications.
• Hybrid Widens the IT Skills Gap: Although many businesses struggle to find enough qualified IT talent, the issue grows when looking for professionals who can manage both a public and a private cloud infrastructure, as currently the two environments require different skill sets. Most organizations (88%) are facing challenges in ensuring their IT staff has the necessary skills to manage a hybrid IT infrastructure, and over half (53%) see this as a top concern.
• Skill Gaps Create Silos and Inefficiencies: Given the different skills required to manage public and private cloud infrastructures, businesses often need to rely on different teams creating silos, something that nearly all (95%) respondents encountered. Most importantly, they often impact the bottom line, something even more concerning at a time when many businesses are focused on optimizing resources. Nearly half of respondents identified resource sprawl (49%), an increase in costs (45%), and/or a waste of resources (43%) as concerns.
• Portability is a Must and Not Just For Applications: For most businesses (88%) software licensing is a key aspect of a hybrid IT infrastructure, as many have run into difficulties surrounding licensing (58%) or vendor lock-in (58%) when moving to public cloud. Additionally, nearly two thirds (65%) are willing to consider subscription licensing for their IT infrastructure.

Businesses are looking for flexibility. It’s no longer a choice between private and public, or between different public cloud providers. Organizations need a solution providing consistent experience, tooling and operational practices across multiple clouds to address many of the challenges and operational inefficiencies they’re currently facing. An optimal hybrid cloud environment provides the consistency they need to take advantage of the full flexibility of multiple clouds, whether private or public.

By: Jacob Chacko, Regional Business Head – Middle East, Saudi & South Africa at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

If you spent any time in your childhood swimming in the sea, there’s a fair chance you remember the feeling of being dumped by a wave. For those brief moments in time, your feet lose the ground and mild panic sets in as you battle to discern up from down. It’s fair to say for many businesses in the financial services industry, that’s exactly how the better part of 2020 has felt.

Most of the major banks in the Middle East – traditionally brick-and-mortar institutions – had their hands full trying to reimagine their security measures overnight and ensure their thousands of employees could continue working seamlessly from home.

But now that the first wave of disruption has passed and we’re finding our way back to the surface again, it’s time for financial institutions to look beyond the initial panic and start focusing on what’s next. According to McKinsey, companies that want to excel in the ‘next norm’ should be paying attention to evolving customer behaviours and how they are likely to impact customer experience in the near term.

With this in mind, Aruba Networks has developed a ‘Banking for the New Normal’ series underpinned by its LAN, WLAN and SD-WAN networking solutions and enhanced with security, automation and analytics, to help banks reinvent their connectivity and the way in which they work.

Upping the ante on innovative service delivery

When it comes to more innovative service, people are increasingly looking for that always-on experience. COVID-19 has rendered time an even more precious commodity and service providers that don’t value their customers’ time do so at their own peril. If a client has travelled to an ATM, for example, they want to know that service will definitely be available to them. By harnessing the power of integrated analytics, banks can make sure that customers don’t end up travelling kilometers to an ATM, only to find it’s out of service. Instead they can proactively let customers know that ATM is not currently functioning and suggest an alternative. In fact, as part of Aruba’s offering, banks can access AI-powered analytics, allowing them to automatically detect and solve any number of different issues before they can impact the business.

Solutions that speak to social distancing

Research shows COVID-19 has normalised physical distancing and people’s need for constant sanitation. In the financial services space, this has translated into customers avoiding bank branches and ATMs where they have to queue with dozens of other people.

But here again real-time analytics can enable banks to provide their customers with insights as to how many other people are on site. Backed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Aruba provides edge-line platforms that provide real-time analytics, meaning the bank can notify the customer that there are four ATMs within their vicinity and let them know exactly how many people are currently at each ATM.

And there are numerous other ways in which forward-thinking banking institutions can draw on the latest technology to make it safer for consumers to engage their services.

IoT-based technology, for example, will be an important focus for banks moving forward because of the growing demand for thermal cameras. While IoT often comes with security concerns – and even more so for those in the banking space – solution providers like Aruba can assist with the secure onboarding of IoT devices – which is necessary when it comes to the deployment of thermal cameras, security cameras and the like.

Greater convenience key to success

Convenience has always been king where customers are concerned, but in a world where people are juggling more stresses and concerns than ever before, convenience is even more critical to success. Luckily, there are many ways in which a financial service provider can use technology to make their customers’ lives easier. Think of something as simple as alerting a client to the fact that their credit card will soon expire as they walk past an ATM. Again with the right edge-line platforms in place, the bank can access this real-time information and make it easy for the customer to pop into the branch and get a new card.

An added advantage of banks having this technology at their fingertips is that they can provide the same connectivity and infrastructure services to their business banking customers as well. In fact as trusted entities with access to the latest and most secure technology, banks can create entirely new revenue streams for themselves by evolving from financial service providers into tech service providers. 

With some banks expecting profit declines as dramatic as 85%, the ability to draw on technology to source revenue from alternative business models is of paramount importance. And with companies like Aruba packaging these solutions with flexible financing options, the technology is significantly more accessible in the current economic climate.

Now that the initial panic and uncertainty around COVID-19 has dissipated, it’s time for companies in the financial services industry to refocus their attention on what’s next. The pandemic has accelerated the demand for technological innovation from consumers and businesses alike, and service providers must ensure they can keep pace with the evolving needs of their customers.

Dimension Data, a leading global technology integrator and managed services provider, today announces the expansion of its next-generation Managed Services to help clients streamline operational efficiencies and drive business outcomes across the Middle East.

As the economy rebounds from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dimension Data has expanded its Managed Services capability across Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates to support businesses as they recover and reinforce their digital transformation efforts. Dimension Data’s global Managed Services platform offers data-driven insights and real-time reporting, managing over 9,000 IP networks and supporting over 13 million users across the globe. The Managed Services centres in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates complement Dimension Data’s global Managed Services platform and operate in accordance with local in-country data sovereignty laws.

Mohammed Hejazi, Managing Director for Dimension Data Middle East, said, “the way in which we work has shifted and remote working has brought a new set of challenges. With rapidly changing situations, organisations expect partners to quickly provide new services to enable them to manage, or accelerate, additional requirements.”

“The boost in productivity will increase data traffic as well as the possibility of attacks on customer networks. Reducing security risks is one of the top reasons for considering a managed services provider. The intent in the Middle East is to proactively monitor client networks and support remedial activities through the Security Operations Centre (SOC) and the Network Operating Centre (NOC),” he added.

Dimension Data’s goal is to allow organisations to focus on their main core business while leaving their day to day IT and Security operational tasks to the subject matter experts. Dimension Data has the expertise in understanding clients pain points, thus pushing the organisation to provide tailored solutions through the rich portfolio which includes different flavours of managed services, like 24/7 proactive support, reactive support, on-site interventions, managed client platforms or used Dimension Data platforms in addition to application managed services.

Dimension Data’s approach to managed services builds on its proven track record of managing and integrating multi-vendor solutions by bringing together its cross-technology portfolio of managed services, delivered through a single scalable and secure platform.

“The next-generation Managed Services offering gives you the data you need to enable IT and operations teams to focus on more strategic, value-add tasks and drive business performance,” said Hejazi.