Fortinet extends security fabric with world's fastest next-generation firewall, 5G connectivity for SASE

John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet
“Fortinet has heavily invested in the development of its 5G security portfolio. Delivering the world’s fastest NGFW, we help service providers secure radio and Internet interfaces at price performance numbers 10 times today’s benchmarks. Additionally, the new 5G FortiExtender provides more WAN connectivity options and is fully integrated into the FortiGate SD-WAN policy engine.”

News summary

Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cyber security solutions, today announced the new FortiGate 7121F and FortiExtender 511F-5G to further secure and accelerate 5G adoption. Powered by Fortinet’s proprietary SPU ASICs, the FortiGate 7121F delivers the highest-performing security necessary for 5G networks and enterprise zero trust access, while FortiExtender 511F-5G provides wireless WAN connectivity for SD-WAN and SASE solutions. 

5G network ecosystem expands the attack surface

5G will enable transformation and innovation for both the enterprise and mobile network operators (MNOs). To unleash its full potential, a new 5G ecosystem, including operational technology (OT) and industrial control vendors and public cloud vendors, is being formed to create new sets of applications and services that will drive this transformation for the industrial enterprise. This expanded 5G ecosystem introduces additional edges and expands the digital attack surface, posing new cyber security risks. These new risks need to be addressed to avoid business disruptions and to ensure low latency and the highest reliability and scalability without sacrificing end-to-end security and compliance.

Security at every edge to protect 5G private and public networks

To address this challenge, the new FortiGate 7121F consolidates networking and security through a security-driven networking approach to deliver full visibility, the highest scalability and advanced security to protect business-critical applications in the distributed and hybrid 5G ecosystem. Through the breadth of the Security Fabric, Fortinet provides end-to-end security for 5G private and public network ecosystems, while also providing flexible connectivity and threat intelligence capabilities.

Ultra-fast 5G connectivity for SD-WAN and SASE

5G connectivity provides users and organisations ultra-fast Internet speed while offering lower latency for their employees working from anywhere. The latest FortiExtender 511F-5G wireless WAN brings sub 6Ghz 5G connectivity to power SD-WAN and SASE solutions. FortiExtender is simple to set-up and plug into Fortinet’s industry-leading Secure SD-WAN solution to provide flexible WAN connectivity for hybrid WAN to deliver better user experience. FortiExtender also enables thin edges with 5G connectivity to FortiSASE for cloud-delivered security and inspection, providing ultra-fast and safe wireless WAN connectivity for a diverse set of industries including retail, OT and healthcare.

End-to-end security benefits for enterprises and MNOs with the security fabric

As an integral part of the Fortinet Security Fabric, the FortiGate 7121F and industry-leading FortiGate portfolio adds to the Fortinet Security Fabric’s ability to create value for both industrial enterprises and mobile network operators, delivering consistent security across 5G private and public networks, OT, the multiaccess edge compute and public private cloud environments through:

Comprehensive security and optimised operations for industrial enterprises: Fortinet’s Security Fabric provides scalable security from the RAN to the core to the multiaccess edge compute (MEC). This allows industrial enterprises to achieve digital innovations, agility, improved safety and compliance while optimising performance and eliminating latency.

Creation of differentiated value-added services: Mobile network operators leverage the Fortinet Security Fabric to build differentiated, revenue-generated, value-added services for their enterprise customers adopting private and public 5G networks. Additionally, MNOs rely on Fortinet to secure their own 5G private and public networks, enabling them to deliver RAN security gateway, roaming security, reducing 5G core API exposure and achieving overall security visibility and automation.

Efficient operations: Through Fortinet’s Fabric Management Center, Fortinet streamlines network and security operations and simplifies workflows. This is possible in part to the Security Fabric’s integrations with more than 400 Open Fabric Ecosystem partners spanning technology areas, including cloud, OT, IOT, SD-WAN, networking and more.

FortiGate 7121F NGFW: Delivering enterprise grade ultra-scalable security

The FortiGate 7121F, powered by Fortinet’s SPUs, offers some of the industry’s highest performance numbers – including the highest Security Compute Rating compared to competing next-generation firewalls. The Security Compute Rating is a benchmark (performance multiplier) that compares FortiGate Network Firewall performance versus the industry average of competing products across various categories that fall within the same price band. Additionally, the FortiGate 7121F is two times faster than the industry average for threat protection and 19 times faster for SSL decryption to help enterprises remove blindspots.

Below is a comparison of the FortiGate 7121F against top firewalls on the market.

Note 1: FGT-7121F with 10 cards and no support​.
Note 2: Results based on ‘optimum combination' of DPC and NPC cards, no services and support​.
Note 3: Estimated with an a la carte configuration using 3xSM 56 cards.
Note 4: Estimated with fully loaded SRX5800 (7xSPC and 3x IOC4- SRX5K-IOC4-MRAT, 1x SRX5K-MPC3-100G10G; 1x RX5K-IOC4-10G).

Supporting quotes

“5G’s potential for transformation and innovation in enterprise verticals is significant, but delivering 5G-supported industrial use cases requires a larger interconnected ecosystem with different components and stakeholders, from 5G-enabled OT/IIOT devices through the 5G network and onto specific industry control systems, applications and tools. End-to-end security visibility, automation and enforcement are critical for the full adoption of 5G in industries and realising the transformational impacts it makes possible.”
Bart de Wijs, Head of Cyber Security, ABB

Additional resources

• Read more about the FortiGate 7121F and how Fortinet is securing 5G ecosystems here.
• Learn more about how Fortinet is securing 5G wireless WAN connectivity for SD-WAN and SASE here.
• Find out how the Fortinet Security Fabric platform delivers broad, integrated, and automated protection across an organisation’s entire digital infrastructure.
• Learn more about FortiGuard Labs threat intelligence and research and the FortiGuard Security Subscriptions and Services portfolio.
• Read more about how Fortinet customers are securing their organisations.
• Engage in the Fortinet User Community (Fuse). Share ideas and feedback, learn more about our products and technology, and connect with peers.
• Follow Fortinet on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.