Volvo Construction Equipment Korea Secures Its Network With Fortinet's Antivirus Firewall Platform

FortiGate-1000 System Protects Volvo's Seoul Headquarters and Changwon Factory Networks From Worms, Viruses and Other Cyber-Attacks

SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 7 -- Fortinet -- the only provider of ASIC-powered, network-based antivirus firewall systems for real-time network protection -- today announced that Volvo Construction Equipment Korea, a unit of Volvo Group and Korea's largest heavy machinery company, has successfully deployed Fortinet's FortiGate-1000 enterprise-class high-speed antivirus firewall to secure its corporate network.

Maintaining a high-level of network security and network performance was of utmost importance to Volvo Construction Equipment Korea. The company had invested heavily in competitive security solutions, yet found them to be inadequate for dealing with the sophisticated nature of blended threats and for securing Web services -- leaving its network vulnerable to worms and other attacks. Looking for a solution that would provide complete content protection across a broad set of applications, Volvo Construction Equipment Korea turned to Fortinet. With the adoption of the FortiGate-1000 platform, Volvo is now protected from "blended threats," ensuring a highly stable network infrastructure.

The South Korean unit of Sweden-based Volvo Group installed Fortinet's FortiGate-1000 gigabit-speed antivirus firewalls at the network gateways of its Seoul headquarters and Changwon production facility, both of which contain significant, mission-critical IT systems and sensitive order and production data. The Seoul headquarters is linked to the Volvo Group network and the Changwon factory, and supports the corporate Web data center. Deployment of FortiGate ASIC-accelerated systems at the edge of the network enabled improved security for internal resources by preventing threats from ever entering the network, as well as faster network performance and uninterrupted work flow -- ultimately translating into more secure and smooth customer service.

Up until now, Volvo Group and its subsidiaries across the world have been especially concerned about the threats that can enter networks from Web, or so-called "Port 80" traffic. As a result they had blocked access to ActiveX applications, Internet cookies and other "active content" that can carry malicious code. But even this proved insufficient to protect against the wide range of attacks, such as Web-based worms that are infiltrating networks via Web connections. With the FortiGate systems in place, Web traffic is screened and cleared of content-based threats before they can reach sensitive IT systems.

Hong Jong-hak, Senior Manager of IS/IT team, Volvo Construction Equipment Korea, said: "All Web-traffic for the company passes through the Changwon factory's network, making it a vulnerable point in our network infrastructure. Additionally, the network has to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without any interruption since our Korean Web sites work in harmony with overseas excavator production lines, depots and foreign dealers who are in different time zones. We required an infallible solution that effectively eliminated all network threats, and did so without impacting the performance or stability of our high-speed network. After trying solutions from other vendors, we found we could achieve this best with Fortinet's ForitGate-1000 system. Since deploying the system, all threats have been eliminated and our network has performed optimally and without any downtime."

The FortiGate-1000 Antivirus Firewall provides comprehensive content- and network-level security for organizations that require gigabit speed but without the substantial premiums that have been required to implement high performance security using conventional systems. The system can be deployed as a high-performance antivirus gateway in conjunction with legacy firewall, VPN and intrusion detection systems, or as a comprehensive security solution taking advantage of the FortiGate-1000's extensive, integrated security capabilities.

Richard Kagan, Fortinet's Vice President of Marketing said: "Volvo Construction Equipment Korea has made various attempts to improve the security of their network in order to take full advantage of the business benefits of the Internet in a safe and reliable way, but until now, couldn't find a capable solution. We are very pleased that, by deploying Fortinet's FortiGate systems, Volvo has been able to achieve the level of security they need without sacrificing performance, and with the availability and uptime needed for their 24x7x365 operation."

About Volvo Construction Equipment Korea (www.volvoce.co.kr)

Volvo Construction Equipment Korea is a unit of Volvo Construction Equipment Global, which is one of the world's leading manufacturers of construction equipment, with a product range encompassing backhoe loaders, wheel loaders, excavators, articulated haulers, motor graders, and compact equipment. The South Korean unit has an excavator production line in Changwon, and is commanding leadership in R&D, production, sales, services in the domestic market. In particular, Volvo Korea has developed core parts for excavators on its own technologies and continues to roll out cutting-edge solutions. Volvo's global sales network is also helping the Korean unit to boost exports by more than 80 percent.

About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)

Fortinet's award-winning FortiGate(TM) series of ASIC-accelerated antivirus firewalls, winner of the 2003 Networking Industry Awards Firewall Product of the Year, are the new generation of real-time network protection systems. They detect and eliminate the most damaging, content-based threats from email and Web traffic such as viruses, worms, intrusions, inappropriate Web content and more in real time -- without degrading network performance. FortiGate systems, the only security products that are quadruple-certified by the ICSA (antivirus, firewall, IPSec, NIDS), deliver a full range of network- level and application-level services in integrated, easily managed platforms. Named to the "Visionaries" category in the 2003 Gartner Enterprise Firewall Magic Quadrant, Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.