Fortinet boosts its Services and Training Offerings to help SOC Teams

Fortinet has announced new security operations center (SOC) augmentation services that helps in strengthening organisation’s flexibility and support short-staffed teams strained by the talent shortage. It helps to close the cyber skills gap and has included initiatives across its programs to further increase access to its industry-recognised training/certifications.

Cybersecurity Skills Shortage Prompts a New Approach

One of the most common challenges that SOC Teams are facing is the talent shortage world-wide. In Fortinet’s 2022 Cyber Security Skills Gap report it shows that 50% of global leaders found security operations as one of the most challenging roles to fill and 42% are still in need of security operations analysts. The Fortinet Survey shows that 80% of organizations suffered from infringements due to lack of Cyber security skills and awareness.

Vishak Raman, Vice President of Sales, India, SAARC & Southeast Asia at Fortinet, said, “Fortinet builds ML-driven automation into all of its SOC offerings to support short-staffed teams affected by the cybersecurity skills shortage. But technology alone won’t solve this issue, which is why we are dedicated to also delivering human-based SOC augmentation services to provide immediate support, while investing in an industry- leading training institute to close the cybersecurity skills gap.”

The sheer volume of security alerts SOC Teams receive per day with lack of resources and personnel leads to missed detection and slower responses that increase exposure to cyber risk. SOC Teams need an immediate solution to alleviate these challenges through investment in automated and integrated SOC, Cyber security technologies and experienced professionals to protect against an ultimatum.

New and magnifying SOC Teams Augmentation services provide immediate support for short-staffed security operations teams are there to overcome these obstacles. Fortinet’s new and amplifying services help SOC Teams in lowering down the organization’s cyber risk while freeing up their time to focus on higher-priority projects.

These updates include:

SOC-as-a-Service (SOCaaS): Fortinet has expanded its SOCaaS offering that blends FortiGuard cybersecurity experts with Fortinet advanced SOC technology including more artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to additional use cases. These updates enhance the offering’s ability to aggregate security alerts in one single cloud-based dashboard for customers to view actionable intelligence and accelerate resolution, and further enabling security operations teams to offload monitoring and detection to Fortinet security experts. Fortinet accelerates alert triage through this approach that rapidly ascalates security incidents, and reduces false-positive alerts for customers.

Outbreak Detection Service:

A new outbreak detection service is available to
customers that alerts subscribers through email as well as automatically within
key product user interfaces to major breaking cybersecurity events that have the

potential for widespread ramifications. These alerts include security incidents such as an attack’s timeline of events and what specific technology has been affected.

The alerts provide organizations with custom threat hunting to run against logs and recognise an impact of an attack, as well as recommendations to improve their security posture for better protection in the near future.

Incident Response and Readiness (IR&R) Services:

Fortinet recently added cybersecurity readiness services as part of its Incident Response offering and shifted the purchasing model to prioritize prevention. By providing a suite of proactive prevention-oriented services, such as risk assessments, playbook development, and tabletop exercises as part of the Incident Response and Readiness Services retainer, organizations can strengthen their cyber preparedness, SOC effectiveness, and reduce cyber risk, while still having access to a team of FortiGuard experts to help with rapid containment and remediation in the event of a cyberattack. In response to an accelerated demand for these services around the globe, Fortinet is also expanding its headcount dedicated to IR&R and SOC automation capabilities to allow more enterprises to have access to the offering.

Expanding Cyber Skills through the Fortinet Training Institute

While the new and enhanced SOC augmentation services provide immediate relief to strained teams, a long-term investment in continued learning and advancing cyber skills is just as critical to keep up with the ever-changing threat landscape. As part of Fortinet’s longstanding commitment to eliminate the skills gap, the Fortinet Training Institute offers award-winning, multi-level training and certifications to security professionals seeking to advance and upskill their knowledge in key cybersecurity areas. These programs also help untap new talent pools to help build the cyber workforce of the future, with a focus on providing training opportunities for women, veterans, students, and underserved populations.

Some recent updates across programs include:

· Increasing Access to Advanced Technical Training: Fortinet has made the practical exam for NSE level 8 more accessible for IT and security professionals everywhere. Both the written and practical portions of the exam are now available in an online, proctored format, making the highest and most elite level of the Network Security Expert (NSE) Certification program more accessible to security professionals around the world.

· Supporting the Advancement of Women Professionals in Cybersecurity: The first women cohort of the Fortinet and Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) bootcamp completed the program, which offered 100 WiCyS members’ access to Fortinet’s NSE level 4 training and labs for free, technical mentors, exam vouchers, and more. Fortinet has also awarded five of the program participants with scholarships to attend the annual WiCyS Conference March 16–18, where they will have access to cyber leaders and employers.

· Developing Cybersecurity Skills in Youth: To further develop the cyber workforce of the future, Fortinet is sponsoring various cybersecurity-based competitions for students in varying academic levels, ranging from middle school to college. This includes being a platinum sponsor of MITRE Engenuity’s Embedded Capture the Flag (eCTF) 12-week competition and a category sponsor for the Carnegie Mellon Capture the Flag competition.

Through these initiatives, Fortinet is progressing toward the company’s pledge to train 1 million people in cybersecurity by 2026. Additionally, Fortinet’s new and enhanced SOC augmentation services build on its expansive services portfolio backed by FortiGuard Labs. With today’s announcement, Fortinet remains committed to alleviating the challenges associated with the cybersecurity talent shortage by helping organizations better manage cyber risks with ML-driven automation, services, and increased access to training.