Day: March 27, 2023

Sustainability, Mobile IDs and a Changing Workforce Continue to be Among Top Concerns HID, a worldwide company in trusted identity and physical security solutions, recenlty announced its inaugural State of the Security Industry Report, which gathered responses from 2,700 partners, end users, and security and IT personnel across a range of titles and organization sizes representing over 11 industries. By looking at what’s driving the next innovations and the technology that supports them, the security industry is empowered to create more value for its organizations and its people. Conducted in quarter 4 of 2022, the survey reveals five common threads, as follows: Prabhuraj Patil Commercial Director, Physical Access Control Solutions, South Asia, HID “We are grateful for the opportunity to share insights with the security community as part of this year’s State of Security Industry Report. Mapping our industry’s dynamic trends helps provide a deeper understanding of customer needs and challenges. We are confident that our report will help security teams adapt faster and better capitalize on innovative solutions” 1. Nearly 90% of respondents acknowledge sustainability as an important issue: End users are increasingly demanding that suppliers provide footprint transparency in terms of their operations, product sourcing and research and development practices, with 87% of respondents stating that sustainability ranks as ‘important to extremely important.’ Mirroring this trend, 76% said they have seen the importance of sustainability increasing for their customers. To support this growing demand, security teams are leveraging the cloud To support this growing demand, security teams are leveraging the cloud and the Internet of Things, even more, to optimize processes and reduce resources. Additionally, new products and solutions are being strategically developed to address sensible energy usage, waste reduction and resource optimization. 2. Most organizations still need to fully embrace identity ‘as-a-service’ (IDaaS) to support hybrid work: The majority of survey respondents – 81% of them – stated they are offering a hybrid work model. As an example, 67% of respondents state that multifactor authentication and passwordless authentication are most important to adapting to hybrid and remote work, while 48% point to the importance of mobile and digital IDs. Interestingly, the survey also reveals almost half of the organizations aren’t quite ready to implement a comprehensive IDaas strategy. 3. Digital IDs and mobile authentication to propel many more mobile access deployments: Identification and authentication are more commonly completed via mobile devices, including smartphones and wearables. The growing popularity of digital wallets from major players such as Google, Apple and Amazon is a key driver of this trend. And expanded capabilities allow smartphone users, for example, to add keys, IDs and digital documents directly in the wallet app. These include, but are not limited to, drivers’ licenses in eight states, verifiable COVID-19 vaccination information, employee badges, student IDs and hotel room keys. Commercial real estate companies (40%) are outpacing other verticals as large commercial real estate firms are leveraging mobile access as part of their larger tenant experience apps, according to the HID survey. 4. Nearly 60% of respondents see the benefit of contactless biometrics: Biometric technologies represent a major break from more conventional means of access control. Using biometrics as an additional authenticating factor (e.g., biometric scans to verify an individual’s physical identity) can help organizations eliminate unauthorized access and fraud. The importance of this trend is exemplified in the survey data, which shows that 59% of respondents are currently using, planning to implement, or at least testing biometric technologies in the near future. 5. Supply chain issues continue to be a concerning factor, but optimism begin to emerge: According to the survey, 74% of respondents say they were impacted by supply chain issues in 2022, although 50% are optimistic that conditions will improve in 2023. Most affected are commercial real estate companies, with 78% citing supply chain problems as their main concern. More than two-thirds of organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees indicate that they were highly impacted by supply chain issues in 2022, but they are also the most optimistic that these issues will resolve in 2023. By better understanding the aforementioned topics, security professionals will be better prepared to adapt faster, deliver exceptional digital plus physical experiences, and capitalize on breakthrough innovations in solutions and services. Read the survey in its entirety here. HID powers the trusted identities of the world’s people, places and things. We make it possible for people to transact safely, work productively and travel freely. Our trusted identity solutions give people convenient access to physical and digital places and connect things that can be identified, verified and tracked digitally. Millions of people around the world use HID products and services to navigate their everyday lives, and billions of things are connected through HID technology. We work with governments, educational institutions, hospitals, financial institutions, industrial businesses and some of the most innovative companies on the planet.  

Fifth-generation security processing unit (FortiSP5) delivers unparalleled levels of power-efficient performance to open new frontiers for securing the branch, campus, 5G, edge compute, operational technologies, and more Fortinet®, the global cybersecurity company driving the convergence of networking and security, recently announced FortiSP5, the latest breakthrough in ASIC technology from Fortinet, propelling major leaps forward in securing distributed network edges. Building on over 20 years of ASIC investment and innovation from Fortinet, FortiSP5 delivers significant secure computing power advantages over traditional CPU and network ASICs, lower cost and power consumption, and the ability to enable new secure infrastructure across branch, campus, 5G, edge compute, operational technologies, and more. Unparalleled innovation in custom chip performance With an application-specific design and embedded multi-core processors to accelerate the convergence of networking and security functions, FortiSP5 delivers: 17x faster firewall performance compared to leading standard CPUs. 5x faster next-generation firewall (NGFW) performance compared to leading standard CPUs to handle higher levels of traffic inspection to detect and block threats. 32x faster encryption to protect sensitive data and secure virtual private networks. 5 Gbps of SSL deep inspection to deliver the processing power needed to inspect encrypted traffic for malware without performance issues. Secure boot to allow only approved operating system software to boot up, protecting critical infrastructure against malicious tampering. Volumetric DDoS protection to thwart distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. VXLAN/ GRE hardware-accelerated encapsulation to enable secure interconnectivity for distributed networks. Hardware-accelerated Quality of Service (QoS) to enhance user experience with dedicated QoS for sensitive applications such as video conferencing. Significant cost and energy savings As a fifth-generation 7-nanometer chip, FortiSP5 packs more capabilities in a smaller form factor to deliver: 88% less power consumption compared to the leading industry-standard CPU. Industry-leading performance per watt. Industry-leading price-performance. Supporting more applications to enable important customer use cases With the ability to accelerate and concurrently run 2x more applications – for example, NGFW, zero-trust network access (ZTNA), SD-WAN, and SSL inspection – compared to the previous generation, FortiSP5 will support use cases such as: Branch/ Campus: FortiSP5 ensures the transition to SD-Branch is efficient and cost-effective in a small form factor, enabling IT staff to simplify management and reduce OpEx while increasing network uptime. Additionally, as more organizations embrace the cloud and hybrid work model, FortiSP5 will continue to be a driver for Secure SD-WAN to empower customers to securely and seamlessly access applications any where while delivering consistent user experience with an optimized platform. Edge Compute: As edge computing improves efficiency and cost control through processing close to the edge, FortiSP5 supports high-speed networks and security threat protection for both commercial and operational technology (OT) environments, minimizing bottlenecks for traffic movement. Operational Technology: The convergence of IT and OT has opened the infrastructure to increased security risks that can disrupt operations. FortiSP5 enables scalable convergence, securing both OT and IT infrastructures with a single, high-performance platform. 5G: 5G adoption is on the rise in enterprise networks, fueling innovation at the edge as it provides higher bandwidth and lower latency. FortiSP5 enables a seamless transition to support 5G with an optimized and sustainable platform. Proven system on a chip technology FortiSP5 will power the next generation of entry and mid-range FortiGate firewalls being released later this year. Now on its fifth generation, we believe Fortinet’s proprietary system on a chip technology has a proven track record of powering the industry’s top-performing products and solutions. A few examples include: Fortinet has been named a Leader in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Network Firewalls,¹ marking the thirteenth time Fortinet has been recognized in this Magic Quadrant. A recent Forrester study2 highlighted that customers deploying Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution, which is backed by FortiGate and SOC technology, achieved a 300% return on investment over 3 years with a payback period of only 8 months. Fortinet supports sustainability goals The energy efficiency and performance per watt of FortiSP5 and the products that leverage the chip will help organizations reduce their power and space requirements. Fortinet remains committed to sustainable product innovation to ensure each generation of its products consumes less energy and is built sustainably. Today, Fortinet’s Sunnyvale headquarters is a net-zero emissions facility and plans for global operations to be completely carbon neutral by 2030. Fortinet was recently named to the 2022 Dow Jones Sustainability World and North America Indices as one of the top sustainable companies in the world, highlighting Fortinet’s commitment to achieving a sustainable society Vishak Raman, Vice President of Sales, India, SAARC and Southeast Asia at Fortinet said, “With the introduction of FortiSP5, Fortinet once again sets new industry records for performance, cost, and energy efficiency. As the only cybersecurity vendor leveraging purpose-built ASICs, an over 20- year investment in innovation, Fortinet delivers the secure computing power that will support the next generation of secure infrastructure.” “Enterprise applications and the users and devices that access them are more distributed than ever, which is causing organizations to rethink their edge network and security architectures. A key to enabling enterprise edge networking is having strong security without compromising on network performance and user experience. Fortinet has a 20-year history in ASIC technology that helps achieve these goals, and the company’s newest FortiSP5 continues that legacy. Fortinet’s portfolio of converged network and security solutions with custom chips helps enterprises accelerate their edge network and security transformation,” said Brandon Butler, Research Manager, Enterprise Networks at IDC.