Bob Fortna, President, Fortinet Federal, Fortinet Inc.
Bob Fortna and his team at Fortinet Federal have dedicated their careers to making sure federal networks and data stay secure and out of the grips of bad actors and nefarious nation-states — the importance of which has been exponentially enhanced as a global pandemic continues to evolve.
As a U.S.-headquartered company led by dedicated Americans, Fortinet takes personal pride in protecting networks in all 15 cabinet-level agencies and numerous independent executive agencies. Beyond that, the company supports a wide spectrum of critical infrastructure industries.
One key to securing federal networks and enabling agency IT teams to focus on the biggest threats is to harness artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate processes on the front end. Fortinet Federal has been developing these tools through FortiGuard Labs, the company’s global threat intelligence and research organization. Using millions of global network sensors, FortiGuard Labs monitors the worldwide attack surface and employs AI to mine that data for new threats.
Another key is closing the cybersecurity skills gap. Veterans offer valuable skills to the IT workforce, and through the FortiVet program, Fortinet helps guide those transitioning military members into the cybersecurity industry by providing them with free professional networking, training and mentoring.
Why Watch
Moving forward, using AI and closing the skills gap will both be the bedrocks of future cybersecurity initiatives. Fortinet has been building on both of those foundations and will continue to evolve.
“The cyber threat landscape is growing, with attackers getting smarter, faster and more destructive every day,” Fortna said. “That means utilizing every advancement at our disposal from the network edge to the core, to protect federal data.”