Fortinet has announced the company has been named the first cybersecurity founding partner of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Centre for Cybersecurity and CEO Ken Xie will serve as a member of the Centre for Cybersecurity Advisory Board.

Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman of the Board, and CEO, Fortinet

“We are proud to be the first cybersecurity company named a founding partner of the World Economic Forum Centre for Cybersecurity and look forward to collaborating with global leaders from the private and public sectors through our shared commitment to deliver a response to the growing global cybersecurity threat. The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity is important for global multi-stakeholder collaboration, and serving as a founding partner of the Centre is yet another step forward in our own mission to secure the largest enterprise, service provider, and government organizations in the world.”

A Global Response to a Global Threat

WEF and Fortinet both believe that the global threat to our digital economy requires a global response. To respond to that threat and shape the future of cybersecurity, WEFhas established the Centre for Cybersecurity, a global network of partners from business, government, international organizations, academia, and civil society to collaborate on cybersecurity challenges. Fortinet’s partnership with the Centre is further reinforcement of the company’s longstanding commitment to public and private sector collaboration. In conjunction with the Centre for Cybersecurity, Fortinet will continue its efforts tocollaborate, innovate and develop powerful global solutions to reduce global cyberattacks, contain current and future cyberattacks, and deter cybercrime.

As part of the company’s activity surrounding the WEF Centre for Cybersecurity andWEF Annual Meeting in Davos:

• Ken Xie, Chairman of the Board, CEO and founder of Fortinet, and Phil Quade, CISO at Fortinet, took part in planning discussions in the inaugural Annual Gathering of the Centre for Cybersecurity in Geneva, Switzerland November 26 – 27.
• It was announced at the Annual Gathering that Accenture, Fortinet and Sberbank are Founding Partners of the Centre and Xiewas namedto the Centre for Cybersecurity Advisory Board.
• Xie has been named a discussion leader at the upcoming WEF Annual Meeting in Davos Switzerland for the Centre for Cybersecurity Cyber Workforce session on Tuesday, January 22, 2019.

As part of its charter, the Centre for Cybersecurity is committed to:

• Establishing, activating and coordinating global public-private partnerships to encourage intelligence sharing and the development of cyber norms.
• Collectively developing, testing and implementing cutting-edge knowledge and tools to foresee and protect against cyberattacks, current and future.
• Implementing global capacity-building and training programs to produce the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.
• Establishing, coordinating and facilitating a Global Rapid-Reaction Cybersecurity Task Force comprised of experts from our partner community to help mitigate the negative impact of severe global cyberattacks.

Fortinet firmly believes in the Centre’s objectives, and is also committed to helping lead the following initiatives:

• Building trust across international borders
• New technologies have brought forward productivity gains and opportunity, but have also extended the threat surface, exposing citizens, consumers, companies, and countries to new threats and vulnerabilities. To fight increasing cybercrime, the global community needs to overcome several major challenges, including lack of trust and cooperation.
• As the digital and physical worlds become more interconnected, actionable threat intelligence with global visibility is the best way to move from being reactive to proactive in a world where cybercrime has no borders. No single organization has a complete view into the security landscape, which is why sharing and collaboration between public and private organizations is critical.
• Building trust is about more than technology and innovation. Fortinet helps shape the future of threat information standards and protocols through ongoing collaboration with global public safety and industry organizations.
• Fortinet is a founding member of the Cyber Threat Alliance, has a partnership with the NATO Communications and Information Agency, and is a member of an expert working group within INTERPOL.

New opportunities for populations and workforces in the digital economy

• Address the shortage of cybersecurity skills in a scalable way: creating a workforce that is relied upon by nearly everyone across both public and private, and help countries with a nascent digital economy to jumpstart its tech sector with an already-indoctrinated cybersecurity-smart population.
• To help address the cyber skillsgap, Fortinet offers a worldwide Network Security Expert (NSE) program, an eight-level certification program aimed at advancing aspiring and technical professionals in their skills and knowledge of today’s modern cybersecurity landscape. In 2016, the company extended the program to educators and students through the Fortinet Network Security Academy (FNSA), facilitating network security education across the globe to help educate, train, and prepare the next generation of cybersecurity experts. Further, the Fortinet Veterans Program (FortiVet) facilitates the transition of exceptional military veterans into the cybersecurity industry by providing professional networking, training, and mentoring to help close the skills shortage gap.

Protection of Critical Infrastructures relied upon by both developed and developing countries

• An initiative is needed to ensure the safety and reliability of the infrastructures that provide critical services (e.g., energy, water, transportation) to large populations. Such infrastructures use technology called “Operational Technology (OT)” that is increasingly targeted by nations states and criminals, since OT is becoming more connected to traditional IT systems, and provides adversaries with the ability to affect large populations or economies without resorting to bullets and bombs.

International norms of behavior in cyberspace

• Work to establish basic principles of acceptable behavior in cyberspace that stabilizes the environment, enables developed and developing countries to pursue the benefits of digital transformation, and create confidence in cyberspace’s future.
• This also includes helping to create standards for independent testing of cybersecurity products/solutions, to ease the decision making of security solutions by purchasers.
• Fortinet has always believed that third-party testing of security products and solutions plays a critical role in thwarting cybercriminals and enabling IT teams to evolve their security infrastructures appropriately. Organizations need effective security solutions that meet an evolving set of requirements, and third-party testing is essential for guiding decisions in selecting and implementing those tools most appropriate for their unique network demands and business objectives.
• For organizations addressing digital transformation, many of the current test methodologies being used by third-party labs and testing centers provide critical insight into emerging requirements and enable them to evaluate potential solutions for features such as interoperability and the ability to share and respond to threat intelligence as part of a coordinated response.