Intelligent CISO Issue 05 | Page 45

industry unlocked can vary. For Culver, any centralised and integrated solution his central team could offer to individual IT groups would bring about essential productivity gains. Top mark security Cyberattacks, such as the denial of service (DDoS) attack which had brought down the nationwide Janet network in 2015 and 2016, had already prompted the university to enhance its security network. Against the backdrop of a number of high-profile breaches affecting organisations across the UK, the university made the strategic decision to invest in cybersecurity solutions as a business priority. It was up to Culver’s central IT team to look at adding firewalls and writing security policies to match each department’s individual needs. These measures had to balance the collaborative nature of the university’s IT architecture and the need to keep student data, intellectual property and research data safe. www.intelligentciso.com | Issue 05 “Cambridge University ran an extensive market and competition evaluation before choosing Fortinet as its chosen security provider for the future. This involved an initial purchase of a redundant solution for both firewalling and DDoS protection at the main 80Gb Janet university link,” said Graeme Stewart, Head of Public Sector, at Fortinet. “In addition, the central IT team will also offer a managed service to all colleges and departments We’re protecting the University of Cambridge’s students, staff, research, data integrity and, ultimately, its reputation. with the FortiGate firewall as the perimeter security.” After a brief search of the market, the team decided to implement Fortinet’s solutions. This included the FortiGate Enterprise Firewall, FortiDDoS, FortiManager centralised security management and FortiAnalyzer centralised network security logging and reporting. The decision was an easy one to make, according to Culver. He cited Fortinet’s existing usage at Cambridge University as a big bonus, as well as its good reputation within the university community. FortiGate enterprise firewalls would provide high performance, multi-layered security across the entire network, while FortiDDoS would provide industry- leading DDoS detection and help mitigate against attacks. At the same time, FortiAnalyzer would give his team a consolidated view across all Fortinet solutions with real-time alerts. But it was the presence of the FortiManager centralised security management solution that sealed the deal. 45