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| Fortinet Offers Cure for First Medical Management Hospital’s Network Security | |
| Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 01:44:00 PM | |
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Integrated Security Appliances Protect Hospital’s Distributed Network. Fortinet - a market-leading network security provider and worldwide leader of unified threat management (UTM) solutions – today announced that First Medical Management/Pacific Hospital of Long Beach has engaged with Fortinet to help secure its core and distributed network with the Fortinet family of multi-threat security appliances including FortiGate® for network protection and FortiClient™ for endpoint security. In addition, Fortinet’s management solution, FortiManager™, has been deployed to easily and remotely make network security changes and to manage all appliances no matter where they are located. First Medical Management selected Fortinet’s multi-threat security appliances over other UTM solutions due to the products’ enterprise capabilities. These features include the ability to create role-based policies for employees, easy management of distributed networks of more than 1,000 users, end point and core security managed from the same platform and, with the release of Fortinet’s new operating system FortiOS™ 4.0, the ability to have data loss protection (DLP) at no additional cost. “Our initial Fortinet deployment was in 2005 and since then we have added FortiClient and upgraded to FortiOS 4.0 to take advantage of all the newly added features. We continue to be impressed with the enterprise-level security features that the product line offers without network degradation,” said Donald Newton, security engineer at First Medical Management Pacific Inc. “You can’t go wrong with Fortinet. It just keeps getting better.” One key enterprise capability essential for successful operation of First Medical Management’s network is Fortinet Server Authentication Extension (FSAE) in combination with Microsoft Active Directory. This feature allows First Medical Management’s IT team to create four distinct user profiles based on the needs of employees: 1) no Internet 2) restricted Internet 3) basic Internet and 4) executive Internet. Prior to the Fortinet deployment, all employees were allowed the same level of access and did not give First Medical Management enough flexibility in managing its network traffic. In addition to FSAE, First Medical Management has also benefited from Fortinet’s newly announced FortiOS 4.0 upgrade. This new operating system helps First Medical’s IT team meet compliance regulations, such as HIPAA, that prohibit hospital data from being distributed illegally outside the network via instant messaging protocols. The new data loss prevention functionality within FortiOS 4.0 enables the company to provide an extra level of data protection without having to deploy a new solution. Deployment Scenario Two FortiGate-1000A appliances are located at the hospital’s main site in Long Beach, Calif. and are being used for network address translation (NAT). Acting as the gateway for remote site-to-site IPSec VPN and for all Internet access, the FortiGate-1000A appliances act as the access point through which all Internet entries and exits must pass through. Located at the data center in Irvine, Calif., another FortiGate-1000A is being used for back-up and, because it has its own bandwidth allotment, the appliance is being used for remote users to VPN into the network. At smaller sites, such as clinics and for vice presidents and directors working remotely, First Medical Management has deployed FortiGate-60 appliances, which are ideal for remote/branch office deployments. Fifteen additional FortiGate-60 appliances are also deployed at a hospital in San Diego for IPSec VPN, routing and Web content filtering. Two years after its initial FortiGate installation, First Medical Management has augmented its Fortinet deployment with 1,000 FortiClient end-point security solutions which are installed on the laptops of those who always work remotely and those who sometimes need to work remotely. The FortiClients are being used mainly for SSL VPN connectivity to the main network and are also being used as the security protection for Cisco IP phones. To manage all its remote appliances, First Medical Management has deployed a FortiManager-800 central management system at its headquarters. FortiManager minimizes the administrative effort required to deploy, configure, monitor and maintain the full range of network protection services provided by Fortinet products. Fortinet’s FortiGate systems are ASIC-accelerated security appliances that integrate essential network and security services such as antivirus, firewall, VPN, intrusion prevention, Web filtering, anti-spam, application control, data leakage protection, SSL inspection and WAN acceleration. All FortiGate systems are kept up to date automatically by Fortinet's FortiGuard® Network, which helps ensure protection against the most damaging, content-based threats from email and Web traffic such as viruses, worms, intrusions, other unwanted network traffic and more. |