In an exclusive research project conducted by AKJ Associates, cybersecurity professionals in the Middle East have named Fortinet one of the top three vendors of security solutions.
The poll, which combines responses from over 150 information security experts in the Middle East – predominantly from the United Arab Emirates – looked into the challenges facing the region’s CISOs, and their experiences with the security solutions market.
Fortinet was voted the second best at fulfilling users’ priorities, and was the second most frequently mentioned provider overall.
Among participants who said that Fortinet best fulfilled their priorities, the top three priorities chosen were (in descending order of votes) ‘integration with existing systems’, ‘quality of customer support’, and ‘reputation / client testimonials’. Participants who voted for Fortinet in this category were also significantly more likely than average to say that ‘affordability’ was one of their top three priorities.
It was particularly popular with certain subsets of participants. It was named the best fit for participants from banking and finance, and from the travel and hospitality industry. Participants with full responsibility for IT, rather than exclusively for information security, were also more likely to rate Fortinet highly.
As well as its overall popularity, Fortinet was voted the single most effective provider in both the ‘threat management / intelligence’ category, and the ‘Internet of Things security’ category.
Securing the ‘Internet of Things’ is crucial in the UAE, which is a pioneer when it comes to connected or ‘smart’ devices. Smart city and government initiatives are making great progress in the region – Dubai is already in the world’s top three smart cities, and aims to make its way to number one.
Even leaving aside projects of such impressive scale, smart devices aimed at consumers are becoming more and more common. Fridges, coffee makers, children’s toys, watches and even clothing can now be connected to the Internet for added functionality.
But security tends to be an afterthought for the creators of these devices, if they consider it at all, and the potential for exploitation is significant. Various amusing – and worrying – stories have come to light over the past few years, including hackers’ use of a ‘smart’ fish tank to infiltrate a casino’s systems, and demonstrations of flaws which allowed white hat hackers to remotely take control of cars’ steering mechanisms. Some have suggested that the only viable solution is to introduce legislation ensuring that satisfactory security is built into connected devices.
But in the meantime, as connected devices increasingly make their way into the workplace, many organisations will need to rely on solutions from third parties such as Fortinet.
