Fortinet - Experts & Thought Leaders

Fortinet®, the global cybersecurity pioneer driving the convergence of networking and security, announces it has acquired Virtue AI, an innovator in AI runtime protection, automated AI validation, and security for autonomous AI systems. The acquisition advances the company’s broader Security for AI strategy and vision for securing the agentic enterprise, building on Fortinet's existing AI security solution portfolio, including its FortiGate Hyperscale Firewall. As organizations rapidly deploy AI applications and autonomous agents, their attack surface expands beyond traditional networks, users, endpoints, applications, and cloud workloads. It now includes prompts, models, agents, Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools, application programming interface (API) calls, and AI infrastructure. Organizations need to adopt AI with confidence, keep it secure in production, and trust it behaves as intended. Preventing harmful content Fortinet met that need earlier this year with FortiAIGate, which safeguards large language models (LLMs) from prompt injections, data leakage, model poisoning, excessive resource consumption, and other emerging AI-specific risks. Virtue AI extends that security to AI models, applications, and agentic systems, from development through runtime, leveraging Virtue AI’s Guardian Agent abilities and key product capabilities, including: Agentic system red-teaming: Tests autonomous agents for exploitable weaknesses across more than 50 sandboxed environments and 14 high-stakes domains, including simulated prompt-injection and MCP-based attacks against agent frameworks. Agent protection, governance, and visibility: Provides full visibility into agents and AI tools running in their environment, discovers unsanctioned AI applications and agents, scans MCP tools and source code for hidden risks, monitors agent behavior, and blocks malicious tool calls before they act. Continuous AI validation: Identifies new risks across every model update and fine-tuning of policies, while generating audit-ready evidence to support security and compliance reviews. The automated red-teaming runs across hundreds of attack vectors and more than 1,000 risk categories, with multimodal testing and on-demand reporting for security, risk, and compliance teams. Real-time guardrails:  Enforces customisable policies across text, images, video, audio, and AI-generated code to prevent harmful content, sensitive data, jailbreaks, and vulnerable code from reaching users or downstream systems. Anticipated market expansion “AI is fundamentally changing enterprise computing, and security must evolve just as quickly,” said Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman of the Board, and Chief Executive Officer at Fortinet. “Virtue AI’s technology will advance our vision for continuous AI assurance, helping customers govern and protect AI systems throughout their lifecycle while operating them confidently at enterprise scale.” According to Gartner®, “the market for securing AI ecosystems and AI agents is rapidly expanding; products and tools are expected to expand from $2.8 billion in 2026 to $16.4 billion by 2030.”[1] Fortinet believes that anticipated market expansion reflects evolving industry demand to secure the AI era. Real-time protection Customers already rely on the Fortinet AI-native Security Fabric for integrated protection across networks, endpoints, clouds, applications, and AI deployments. This acquisition complements FortiAIGate and further strengthens Fortinet’s AI runtime security capabilities with Virtue AI’s automated validation and real-time protection. Combined with coordinated enforcement and FortiGuard Labs threat intelligence, it will give organizations the confidence to secure AI systems throughout their lifecycle. Financial terms of the transaction are not disclosed, and the amount paid by Fortinet as consideration is immaterial to Fortinet’s business.

Fortinet® , the global cybersecurity pioneer driving the convergence of networking and security, announced the FortiGate 1200G series, the newest addition to the FortiGate G series with FortiSASE Outpost, which brings cloud-delivered security services into customer-controlled environments. By combining high-performance threat protection, modern connectivity, hardware-rooted platform security, and cloud-delivered security capabilities, the solution gives organizations the flexibility to enforce security where it makes the most business sense. Whether on-premises, at the edge, or in the cloud, security teams can maintain consistent protection, high performance, and simplified operations across hybrid environments. Advanced technology "The convergence of firewall and SASE technologies is creating a new SASE firewall market built for the realities of today’s hybrid world. Fortinet anticipated this shift by building FortiGate and FortiSASE on FortiOS and investing in proprietary ASIC technology that delivers security and performance at scale from day one." "The FortiGate 1200G with FortiSASE Outpost capability advances this vision by combining local enforcement and cloud-delivered security to address customers’ evolving sovereignty, performance, and AI infrastructure requirements." Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman of the Board, and CEO of Fortinet. FortiGate 1200G Series: High-Performance Security Built for AI Infrastructure As AI adoption, encrypted traffic, and hybrid infrastructure reshape enterprise networks, organizations need to inspect growing traffic volumes without introducing performance bottlenecks. They also need the flexibility to determine where security enforcement occurs based on application performance, data sovereignty, compliance, and operational requirements. Powered by Fortinet’s latest FortiASIC architecture, the FortiGate 1200G series accelerates networking and security processing to deliver predictable, low-latency protection for demanding enterprise and data center environments. Flexible 10G, 25G, and 100G connectivity helps organizations modernize their infrastructures, while hardware-rooted protections strengthen the integrity and resilience of the FortiGate 1200G. Key benefits of the FortiGate 1200G include: Keeping applications fast: Predictable low-latency inspection powered by FortiASIC enables organizations to secure encrypted and AI-driven traffic without sacrificing application performance. Modernizing with room to grow: Flexible connectivity supports campus, data center, and hybrid environments while providing headroom for future AI-driven growth. Increasing operational resilience: Hardware-rooted protections, secure credential storage, and built-in redundancy strengthen platform integrity and improve business continuity. Reducing operational complexity: FortiOS consolidates networking and security while enabling consistent policy management across appliances and cloud-delivered services. When configured as a FortiSASE Outpost, the FortiGate 1200G can operate as a high-performance local SASE point-of-presence (POP), giving organizations another option for where security inspection and enforcement occur. Industry analysts see converged firewall and SASE architectures as increasingly important for organizations preparing networks for AI-driven demands. Providing flexibility "Converged SASE and firewall platforms provide the flexibility to meet dynamic, AI-accelerated network architectures where they are, rather than becoming part of next year’s technical debt. Buyers that judge platforms only by how well they fit today’s environment, rather than how effectively they can adapt to tomorrow’s, are already behind." Pete Finalle, Research Manager at IDC. FortiSASE Outpost: Sovereign security delivered at the edge Organizations increasingly need the flexibility to determine where security inspection and enforcement occur based on their business, performance, sovereignty, and compliance requirements. Traffic can be routed through a cloud-based SASE POP, while data-sensitive, or latency-critical traffic can be processed locally through FortiSASE Outpost running on a FortiGate within a customer-controlled environment. Configured as a FortiSASE Outpost, the FortiGate operates as an ASIC-accelerated on-site SASE POP, delivering security inspection, policy enforcement, and access control closer to users and data. Organizations can strategically place on-site POPs near large concentrations of users in regions without a nearby cloud POP, helping reduce latency, preserve application performance, and lower bandwidth costs. This differentiated Fortinet architecture allows organizations to use Fortinet-operated POPs, on-site POPs, or both. The FortiSASE interface centrally manages configuration, policy, monitoring, lifecycle operations, and upgrades across both deployment models, maintaining consistent zero-trust policies, visibility and protection without treating the on-site POP as a separate security environment. Organizations can also keep designated traffic, logs, and processing within defined geographic or private infrastructure boundaries to meet regulatory requirements and reduce connectivity costs without changing the end-user experience. Protect every user without sacrificing performance or control Regardless of where enforcement occurs, users receive a consistent access experience, and organizations maintain common security policies, visibility, and zero-trust controls. This enables security teams to keep designated traffic, processing, and logs within specific geographic, jurisdictional, or private infrastructure boundaries without creating a separate security architecture or changing how users connect to applications. This deployment flexibility is especially important for AI-driven environments. Agents, applications and connected devices generate growing volumes of east-west traffic that may not need to be routed through a cloud POP and back. Using the FortiGate as a high-performance local enforcement point, organizations can inspect this traffic closer to the user. This helps reduce latency, preserve application performance, and maintain control over sensitive information. Built on FortiOS, FortiGate and FortiSASE share policy, threat intelligence, security context, and zero-trust decisions across local and cloud-delivered environments. FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services provide real-time intelligence and automated protection across both deployment models, while FortiAI helps security teams investigate and respond to threats faster without adding operational complexity. Analysts also point to the need for architectures that let organizations choose where enforcement occurs without fragmenting policy, operations, or the user experience. Meaningful SASE firewall market "Organizations should not have to choose between the scalability of cloud-delivered security and the performance, control, or sovereignty of on-premises enforcement. The convergence of these models is creating a meaningful new SASE firewall market. Fortinet is well positioned for this shift, enabling customers to apply security through cloud-delivered FortiSASE or locally with the FortiGate 1200G and with FortiSASE Outpost, based on what their business requires, while maintaining consistent policy, visibility, and user experience." Will Townsend, Chief Analyst, LoneStar Advisory and Research. Availability FortiGate 1200G is expected to be available in Q3 2026.

Fortinet®, the global cybersecurity pioneer driving the convergence of networking and security, announces new capabilities for its unified endpoint platform, FortiEndpoint, designed to help organizations securely adopt AI, protect sensitive data, and reduce risk. By bringing AI visibility and control, native data security, endpoint risk scoring, and FortiAI-assisted operations into FortiEndpoint, Fortinet enables security teams to better govern AI usage, reduce sensitive data exposure, enforce risk-aware access, and simplify security operations across distributed environments. Converge critical security “Organizations need a simpler and more effective way to manage security as their environments become more complex and AI-enabled. The Fortinet Security Fabric is designed to converge critical security and networking functions across the enterprise, helping customers reduce complexity, improve visibility, and strengthen protection. With FortiEndpoint, we are extending that strategy by consolidating security, secure access, data security, AI visibility, and assisted operations in a unified endpoint platform, delivered through one agent, one console, and one license,” said Michael Xie, Founder, President, and CTO at Fortinet. Strengthening adaptive access As agents and AI-enabled applications become embedded in everyday work, organizations need better visibility, stronger governance, and integrated protection to securely enable AI while reducing endpoint risk and protecting sensitive data. These needs are even more urgent as threat actors move faster and use increasingly sophisticated techniques to exploit gaps across users, devices, applications, and data. The pressure security teams are facing is compounded by fragmented tools across protection, detection and response, secure access, and data security, which can slow security teams and limit visibility. FortiEndpoint builds on the consolidation strategy previewed at Fortinet Accelerate 2026 by bringing AI visibility and governance, endpoint protection, detection and response, secure remote access, native data security, and FortiAI-assisted operations together through one agent, one console, and one license. Through integration with the Fortinet Security Fabric, endpoint telemetry and risk context can inform connected security controls, strengthening adaptive access, policy enforcement, and enterprise-wide visibility. Data security requirements These capabilities help define Fortinet’s approach to endpoint security for the AI era, advanced through three key areas of innovation: Securing AI Use at the Endpoint - FortiEndpoint provides centralized visibility and control over sanctioned and unsanctioned AI application and agent usage across endpoints, including installed AI apps, agents, and web-based tools. From a single view, organizations can identify agents and applications in use, monitor adoption, and understand user activity to help surface shadow AI, unmanaged applications, and unauthorized tool usage. With granular guardrail policies, security teams can allow, restrict, monitor, or block applications based on corporate security, compliance, and data security requirements. This supports responsible AI adoption while reducing the risk of unsanctioned tools, sensitive data exposure, and policy violations. Stronger data security Reducing AI-Driven Data Exposure and Insider Risk - FortiEndpoint now natively supports DLP to help secure AI interactions and reduce insider risk by automatically inspecting sensitive data exchanged with AI applications, agents, and web services. Built-in user coaching provides real-time policy guidance to help users understand acceptable AI usage and reduce risky behaviours without impacting productivity. This helps prevent the leakage of sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, intellectual property, and financial information directly at the endpoint. By integrating DLP into FortiEndpoint, organizations can safely adopt AI while maintaining stronger data security and compliance controls without adding another point product or management layer. Unified management experience Unifying Endpoint Security, Access, Data Security and AI-Assisted Operations - FortiAI-Assist is built into FortiEndpoint to simplify administration and accelerate day-to-day operations. Security teams can use natural language to investigate events, visualise findings, generate investigation summaries, identify high-risk devices, and troubleshoot issues. It also provides contextual insights, policy recommendations, and risk guidance to help analysts strengthen governance, prioritise threats, scale threat hunting, and improve efficiency through a unified management experience. These assisted workflows are complemented by adaptive zero-trust capabilities with dynamic risk and compliance scoring. By continuously assessing endpoint health, compliance status, and risk posture, FortiEndpoint helps organizations make access decisions based on real-time context, so access to AI applications and protected resources can be adjusted as risk changes. This helps organizations reduce exposure, enforce more consistent policy, and safely support AI-enabled work. Sensitive data leakage Industry analysts are also recognizing the importance of this integrated approach as organizations look for practical ways to govern AI use without adding more tools and complexity. “Fortinet is addressing what many CISOs need now: visibility into AI usage, control over sanctioned and unsanctioned tools, protection against sensitive data leakage, and real-time coaching to help employees use AI responsibly,” said Chris DePuy, Technology Analyst at 650 Group. “Delivering these capabilities through FortiEndpoint gives customers a practical way to manage AI risk with the same agent and license they already rely on for endpoint security.”