Latest News

Fortinet develops advanced AI technology to fight cybercrime

19 Mar 2019, 02:59 pm
Financial Nigeria
Fortinet develops advanced AI technology to fight cybercrime

News Highlight

FortiGuard is an advanced AI technology that analyses files and URLs and labels them as clean or malicious, doing all this at machine speeds and with a high degree of accuracy.

Symbol of a cyber attacker

Fortinet, an American cybersecurity software developer, said its artificial intelligence-powered cybersecurity programme, called FortiGuard, combats cyber threats at machine speeds. Doros Hadjizenonos, Regional Director for SADC at Fortinet, said on Tuesday that adding AI to an organisation’s network security strategy is essential to staying ahead of today’s accelerated cybercrime trends.  

The Sunnyvale, California-based company said the global threat landscape continues to evolve rapidly, with increasingly sophisticated, zero-day malware that traditional security approaches can no longer keep pace with. According to a report released earlier this month by Kaspersky Lab – a cybersecurity and anti-virus provider – 116.5 million attacks using malicious mobile software were recorded in 2018. This is nearly double the number of attacks on devices in 2017.  

To show the seriousness of cyber insecurity, researchers have estimated that the cost of cybercrime will reach $2.1 trillion by the end of 2019. A lot of cybersecurity companies have introduced AI capabilities into their solutions. However, in an editorial, Hadjizenonos maintained that unlike these companies whose machine learning models are incomplete and methods are undisclosed, Fortinet's methodology is transparent, giving customers an insight into the breadth and depth of the analysis involved.

The Regional Director said FortiGuard is an advanced AI technology that the company's team uses to analyse files and URLs and label them as clean or malicious — at machine speeds and with a high degree of accuracy. Fortinet began developing a self-evolving threat detection system over six years ago. This system leverages a custom-designed artificial neural network (ANN), a system upon which the deep-learning model of effective AI is built. The company's ANN comprises of billions of nodes, and it is meticulously trained with new threat data every day, giving the company a significant competitive threat intelligence advantage over every other vendor in the security marketplace.

“FortiGuard AI generates threat intelligence that automatically updates defensive signatures for every solution across the entire Fortinet Security Fabric, enabling security tools to work together to defend customers with advanced threat detection and protection solutions,” wrote Hadjizenonos. “This allows the Fortinet Security Fabric to integrate, collaborate, and automate threat detection, prevention, and remediation capabilities through sandboxing by sharing threat intelligence across each security element in real time.”

According to the Regional Director, the goal of AI is to replicate the analytical processes of human intelligence and to enable decision making at machine speeds. He added that the machine learning (ML) model used to train FortiGuard AI leverages the essential learning model strategies. The most crucial element of any AI solution is the methodology used to train its analysis and decision-making algorithms.

The company said its cybersecurity system covers the network from end to end, giving it a unique and comprehensive view that includes every component needed to protect an organisation's ecosystem — from the data centre to multiple clouds. This approach, which is reportedly unique in the industry, improves operational efficiencies while dramatically mitigating risks, Fortinet said.

The FortiGuard AI threat detection is incorporated into the Security Fabric’s centralised visibility and controls. As a result, it also enables the network security team to work proactively based on the most accurate and timely information possible.


Related News