Tag Archives: fortios security profiles

Inside FortiOS: AntiVirus

AntiVirus uses a suite of integrated security technologies to provide against a variety of threats, including both known and unknown malicious codes (Malware), plus Advanced Targeted Attacks (ATA), also known as Advanced Persistent Threats (APT).

Advanced protection against malware and APTs

Malware and Advanced Persistent Threats can cause significant damages to today’s organizations. These malicious codes are commonly designed to steal valuable data, gain unauthorized access, or cause products to degrade. FortiOS’s AntiVirus is an industry-proven anti-malware security solution with robust features and deployment options

FortiOS offers the unique ability to implement both Flow- and Proxy-based AV concurrently, depending on traffic type, users, and locations. Flow-based AV offers higher throughput performance while proxy-based solutions are useful in mitigating stealthy malicious codes. The AV detection capabilities are further enhanced with complementary security features and external sandbox integration.

By utilizing the unique Content Pattern Recognition Language (CPRL) built into the FortiASIC Content Processor, FortiOS is able to deliver high performance and low latency anti-malware capabilities. This real-time protection is backed by a team of worldwide researchers.

Highlights

Certification from multiple industries for best-in-class security and capacity with proven coverage and high performance.
Multi-layered protection with extended AV components and external file analysis integration. l Comprehensive remediation actions such as file quarantine and knowledge tools.

Key Features & Benefits

Robust feature set	Allows the flexibility to deploy appropriate protection according to security needs and infrastructure designs.
High performance utilizing FortiASIC and patented CPRL AV signatures	Low latency and high capacity ensures that business applications are not affected while security is enforced.
Backed by FortiGuard Labs that deliver real-time protection	Critical digital assets are covered by continuous protection against latest threats.

Features

Industry’s validated protection

FortiOS anti-malware components and FortiGuard AV signatures periodically undergo numerous authoritative certifications. These independent certifications demonstrate that the solution offered is of the highest standard in performance and accuracy, ensuring organizations are truly protected.

Fortinet has been consistently ranked among the top vendors for Virus Bulletin’s RAP (Reactive And Proactive) bimonthly tests. This test measures a product’s detection rates over the freshest samples available, as well as samples not seen until after product databases are frozen, thus reflecting both the vendor’s ability to handle the huge quantity of newly emerging malware and accurately detect previously unknown malware.

Real time protection

The FortiGuard AntiVirus Service provides fully automated updates to ensure protection against the latest content-level threats via the experienced FortiGuard global network is backed by over 200 researchers. With the release of FortiOS 5.6, botnet protection is part of the FortiGuard AntiVirus contract.

FortiGuard AV service quick facts

l 95,000 malware programs neutralized per minute l 1.8 Million new and updated AV definitions per week l Hourly updates of the AV signature database l 190 TB of threat samples till date

Organizations can also engage the FortiGuard Premier Signature Service, which provides enhanced virus detection and threat analysis support. This service offers submissions for custom AntiVirus signatures on a daily basis, offering prioritized support with guaranteed response times. With the release of FortiOS 5.6, botnet protection is part of the FortiGuard AntiVirus contract.

Unique proxy- and flow-based AV

FortiOS offers organizations the flexibility to select the most appropriate inspection method for different network sessions. This can be implemented by defining policies that match specific source objects (IP, IP ranges, users, and devices), destination objects, applications, and schedules with different AV profiles.

Flow-based AV relies on IPS technology where packets are inspected in real-time and matched against the AV signature database. It offers lower latency and higher throughput than Proxy-based AV. Flow-based AV is recommended for inspecting traffic that requires spontaneous user experience or when serving as an additional AV protection layer.

FortiOS’s Proxy-based AV offers the most secure AV protection as it’s able to inspect more protocols and provides replacement messages on wider range of applications.

AV acceleration with Content Processor

The FortiASICS Content Processor (CP) accelerates content processing traditionally performed completely by the CPU. The CP reduces the resources required by the CPU when matching an incoming file against the signature database, thus improving system performance and stability.

Proactive protection using patented CPRL

Compact Pattern Recognition Language (CPRL) is a patented and proprietary programming language that allows for further inspection of common patterns to not only protect against threats and their variants but also to predict tomorrow’s zero-day malware. It allows FortiGuard analysts to describe entire families of malware with a single program, instead of the traditional signature- based “one signature, one variant” model used by other vendors. With fewer signatures to match, throughput performance and latency naturally improve.

Intelligent behavioral evaluation

Signature-based security alone is no longer sufficient; it is now critical to understand how devices on your network are behaving. Threat Weight scoring provides a cumulative security ranking of each client device on your network based on a range of behaviors. It provides specific, actionable information that helps identify compromised systems and potential zero-day attacks in real-time.

This unique system attaches predefined scores to various malicious network activities discovered by IPS, application control, URL filtering, etc., to determine the top suspicious users. Administrator can then further inspect these users to undercover unknown threats or APTs via FortiView.

External file analysis integration

FortiOS offers organizations the ability to adopt robust ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) framework that reaches mobile users and branch offices, detecting and preventing advanced attacks that may bypass traditional defenses by examining files from various vectors, including encrypted files. To detect unknown threats, zero-day, and targeted attacks, the FortiGate can engage external resources to perform additional file analysis. Files can be submitted to an on- premise appliance (FortiSandbox) or cloud-based service (FortiSandbox Cloud) after both proxy-based and flow- based AV processing.

It is also possible to configure the FortiGate to automatically receive dynamic signature updates from FortiSandbox and add the originating URL of any malicious file to a blocked URL list. In addition, if the organization deploys integrated endpoint control with FortiClient, an administrator can instruct an infected terminal to self-quarantine.

File filtering

File filtering using data leak prevention (DLP) on the FortiGate offers an effective ways to stop unwanted file transmission instantly. Administrators may implement granular file controls by defining protection profiles using filenames or nearly 50 different file types over mail, web, and file download protocols.

File quarantine

FortiOS offers sophisticated file quarantine capabilities that allow organizations to archive suspicious or blocked files for further examination or to release false positives.

Anti-bot

Organizations may prevent, uncover, and block botnet activities using FortiOS Anti-Bot traffic pattern detection and domain and IP reputation services supplied in real-time by FortiGuard threat experts.

User notification

User notifications are helpful in reducing administration and support burdens, as well as providing user education. FortiOS is able to automatically replace blocked attachments and downloads with detailed information sent to Email, FTP, or web users.

Monitoring, logging, and reporting

FortiOS empowers organizations to implement security best practices that require continuous examination of their threat status and adaptation to new requirements. The FortiView widgets provide useful analysis data with detailed and contextual session information, which can be filtered, ranked, and further inspected. System events can also be archived via logs, which in turn can generate useful trending and overview reports.

FortiOS also offers robust in-built E-mail and SMS alert systems, as well as integration with external threat management systems using SNMP and standard-based Syslogs.

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Inside FortiOS: Application Control

Application control technologies detect and take action against network traffic based on the application that generated the traffic. Application control uses protocol decoders with signatures that analyze network traffic to detect application traffic, even if the traffic uses nonstandard ports or protocols.

Enhance control and network visibility

Controlling and monitoring applications on a network can seem like a daunting task due to the wide range of available applications. It is no longer an option to simply block or allow TCP and/or UDP ports since most applications do not map to individual ports. For example, controlling traffic on an HTTP or HTTPS port is futile against complex social networking sites and cloud applications.

FortiOS leverages its massive application database to identify applications and their activities while still providing a suitable and sufficient user experience, thanks to FortiASIC Content Processors (CPs), which boost CPU performance. Organizations can adopt more granular control, such as allowing logins but not chatting over selected sites. Traffic shaping may also be applied to the application traffic that is allowed. After applying control measures, continuous monitoring ensures that the measures are effective and allow for changes in application traffic patterns to be managed.

Highlights

Superior performance using the unique FortiASIC Content Processor that offloads heavy computation from the CPU.
Flexible implementation with robust deployment modes and granular controls. l Excellent visibility and management tools that help administrators improve security.
Application control is a standard part of any FortiCare support contract and the database for Application Control signatures is separate from the IPS database. Access to the database no longer requires a FortiGuard IPS subscription.
Supports detection for traffic using HTTP protocol (versions 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0).
Ability to configure application control by adding individual applications or application categories to security policies when operating in flow-based inspection and NGFW policy-based mode.

Key features & benefits

Identifies and controls application traffic

Allows organization to strengthen security policies by controlling evasive application communications.

Inside FortiOS: Application Control

Leverages FortiGate’s hardware acceleration and software optimization	Offers more security without compromising performance.
Granular control and integration with other FortiOS capabilities	Provides administrators the ability to implement the most appropriate configuration for any given organization.

Features

NSS Labs “Recommend” rating for Next Generation Firewall

Fortinet’s entry into the NSS Labs Next Generation Firewall Group Test in 2013, 2014 and 2016 received the “Recommend” rating, placing it as one of the top performing systems. NSS Labs uses respectable real-world testing methodologies to measure Next Generation Firewall protection and performance, including application control.

Superior performance with unique hardware architecture

Unlike a traditional security gateway, which relies heavily on CPUs for packet inspection, the FortiGate’s unique hardware architecture allows FortiOS to automatically utilize appropriate hardware components to achieve optimal performance. This prevents the CPU from becoming a bottleneck as it performs various functions concurrently.

In support of application control, the Content Processor (CP) is a specialized ASIC chip that handles demanding cryptographic computation for SSL inspection and intensive signature matching. By offloading these processes from the CPU, the FortiGate is able to minimize performance degradation when administrators opt for greater security.

Robust deployment modes

FortiOS supports a wide array of network protocols and operating modes, allowing administrators to deploy the most appropriate security for their unique IT infrastructure. FortiOS also supports a variety of routing and switching protocols.

The FortiGate is able to operate in inline route and transparent mode. It can also operate in offline sniffer mode for passive monitoring of user activities. These different operating modes run concurrently by using virtual systems.

Protection at the edge

With today’s BYOD and mobile workforce environment, it is no longer wise to deploy control just at the Internet gateway. Through Fortinet Security Fabric, FortiOS unique wireless and switch controller feature allows organizations to implement better visibility and protection closer to internal devices. Moreover, with FortiClient, administrators can also apply similar policies when mobile users are outside of the protected networks.

Advanced application detection and control

By relying on the FortiOS 3rd Generation IPS engine, the FortiGate is able to inspect many of today’s encrypted and evasive traffic, as well as traffic running on new technologies, such as SPDY protocol. The inspection can be applied to both network and IPsec/SSL VPN traffic.

An application and its specific activity are identified using FortiGuard’s Application Control database of over 2,500 distinct signatures. These signatures are crafted by researchers across the globe to include applications that may be unique to platforms, regions, and/or languages. It also offers specific application activity identification, such as a Facebook posting or Dropbox file sync. The database is kept up to date via scheduled or manual downloads.

The application database is classified into 20 intuitive categories for ease of use. Administrators may also create specific application overrides that differ from the category settings. These specific applications can be filtered and selected by type of behavior, risk levels, technology type, application vendor and popularity.

Administrators may also apply advanced controls, such as setting up session TTLs for specific applications using CLI commands.

Traffic shaping

Organizations may better utilize bandwidth and protect critical applications by enforcing granular application usage with traffic shaping. Administrators can create various traffic shaping profiles by defining traffic priority and maximum or guaranteed bandwidth. These profiles can then be assigned to targeted applications.

User notification

User education is central to an effective security implementation. In response to this, FortiOS lets you provide user notification when blocking an unauthorized application. The notification appears as an HTML block page for web-based applications.

Advanced notification is possible by implementing Fortinet’s browser-embedded frame. And when “off-net” users are denied access, notifications appear via FortiClient’s notification pop-ups.

Deep inspection for cloud applications

The prevalence of cloud applications like Dropbox poses a security challenge to today’s organizations. Using

FortiOS’s deep inspection for popular cloud applications, administrators gain deep and useful insights, via FortiView and logs, into activities associated with these applications, such as user IDs, cloud actions, file names, and file sizes. For popular video sites, FortiOS will also be able to track video files viewed.

Inside FortiOS: Application Control

SSL inspection for encrypted traffic

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a popular encryption standard used to protect Internet traffic but may also be used to evade traditional inspection. FortiOS enables organizations to adopt effective application control even when traffic is encrypted.

Unique hardware components and software optimizations can decrypt traffic with minimal performance impact. The inspection can easily omit sensitive communications, such as financial transaction (thereby complying with privacy policies), or bypass applications that forbid SSL inspection by using granular policy settings.

Monitoring, logging, and reporting

FortiOS empowers organization to implement security best practices that require continuous examination of threat statuses and the ability to adapt to new requirements.

The FortiView widgets provide useful analyses with detailed and contextual session information that can be filtered, ranked, and further inspected. For example, an administrator can instantly query the top applications that are currently consuming bandwidth and drill down to identify their users and help decide if such activities should be blocked.

Network, threat, and system events activities can be archived via syslogs. In turn, these logs can generate useful trending and overview reports.

Lastly, the FortiOS offers robust in-built email and SMS alert systems. Meanwhile, integration with external threat management systems can be achieved with SNMP and standard-based syslogs.

Recipes

Visit cookbook.fortinet.com for these and other recipes:

l NGFW policy-based mode

Inside FortiOS: Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)

Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) technology protects your network from cybercriminal attacks by actively seeking and blocking external threats before they can reach potentially vulnerable network devices.

World class next generation IPS capabilities

Today, sophisticated and high volume attacks are the challenges that every organization must recognize. These attacks are evolving, infiltrating ever-increasing vectors and complex network environments. The result is an urgent need for network protection while maintaining the ability to efficiently provide demanding services and applications.

FortiOS’s IPS functionality is an industry-proven network security solution that scales up to over 200 Gbps of inline protection. Powered by purpose-built hardware and FortiASICs, FortiOS is able to achieve attractive TCO while meeting performance requirements. IPS is easy to set up, yet offers feature-rich capabilities, with contextual visibility and coverage. It is kept up-to-date by research teams that work 24 hours a day worldwide, in order to detect and deter the latest known threats as well as zero-day attacks.

Highlights

Validated best-in-class security and capacity with proven coverage and high performance.
Comprehensive protection provided by a signatures-based IPS engine, protocol anomaly scanning, and DDOS mitigation. l Flexible deployment options and actionable implementations for a wide array of network integration and operation requirements.

Key features & benefits

High Performance IPS, powered by FortiASIC

Low latency and high capacity ensure business applications are not affected while security is enforced.

Best-in-class security with superior coverage

Protects critical digital resources from both internal exploits and external cybercriminals, even if sophisticated attacks are crafted.

Backed by FortiGuard Labs that deliver real-time

protection

Maintains up-to-date and proactive protection against latest known threats and newly discovered hacking techniques while allowing time for organizations to patch vulnerable systems.

Features Inside FortiOS: Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)

Features

Tested and proven protection

Not only have FortiGates been deployed in some of the largest enterprises in the world since 2002, FortiOS IPS components and FortiGuard IPS signatures are periodically tested and certified by well-known external labs. For example, Fortinet’s FortiGate 3000D earned the highest ratings for Security Effectiveness, blocking 99.9 percent of exploits in the recent NSS Labs DCIPS test. These independent certifications ensure that solutions delivered to

customers are of the highest standards in performance, coverage, and accuracy.

Real-time & zero-day protection

The FortiGuard Intrusion Prevention Service (IPS) provides customers with the latest defenses against stealthy network-level threats through a constantly updated database of known threats and behavior-based signatures.

FortiGuard IPS service quick facts

l Over 10,000 signatures consisting of 18,000 rules l Approximately 470,000 network intrusion attempts resisted per

minute

l About 1,000 rules are updated or added per week l Over 300 Zero-day vulnerabilities discovered to date

This update service is backed by a team of threat experts and a close relationship with major application vendors. The best-in-class team also uncovers significant zero-day vulnerabilities continuously, providing FortiGate units with advanced protection ahead of vendor patches.

Uncompromised performance

The FortiASICS Content Processor (CP) accelerates content processing, which is traditionally done completely by the CPU. The CP reduces the resources required by the CPU when matching an incoming file against the signature database, thus improving system performance and stability.

Protocol decoders and anomaly detection

Protocol decoders are required to assemble the packets and detect suspicious, nonconforming sessions that resemble known attacks or are non-compliant to RFC or standard implementation.

FortiOS offers one of the most comprehensive arrays of protocol decoders in the industry, providing customers with significantly wide coverage in all kinds of environments.

Pattern & rate-based signatures

The pattern signature matching technique is essential in IPS implementation due to its high level of precision and accuracy. FortiOS offers administrators robust pattern signature selection using filters based on severity, target, operating system, application, and protocol. Each of the 10,000+ signatures has a direct link to its detailed entry on the threat encyclopedia and CVE-ID references. After selection, administrators are able to assign associated actions such as monitoring, blocking, or resetting the session.

Rate-based IPS signatures protect networks against application based DoS and brute force attacks.

Administrators can configure nearly 30 rate-based IPS signatures and tune them to their needs. Threshold (incidents per minute) and an action to take when the threshold is reached can be assigned to each signature. If the action is set to block, then a timeout period can be set so that the block is removed after a specified duration.

DoS and DDoS mitigation

DoS policies can help protect against DDoS attacks that aim to overwhelm server resources. In FortiOS, the DoS scans precede the policy engine at the incoming interfaces, thus eliminating unnecessary sessions from the firewall process and state table entry during a surge of attack traffic. This helps to safeguard the firewall from overloading and allows it to perform optimally.

FortiOS DoS policies can be configured to detect and block floodings, port scans, and sweeps. Administrators can set baselines for the amount of concurrent sessions from sources or to destinations. The settings utilize thresholds and can be applied to UDP, TCP, ICMP, IP, and SCTP.

Network interfaces associated with a port attached to a Network Processor (NP) can be configured to offload anomaly checking, further offloading the CPU for greater performance. Some of the anomaly traffic dropped includes LAND attacks, IP protocol with malformed options, and WinNukes.

Quarantine attacks

FortiOS offers sophisticated automatic attack quarantine capabilities which allow organizations to proactively prevent further attacks from known attackers over a predefined duration. Quarantining by duration can be used to protect potentially vulnerable servers until more permanent defense.

Packet logging

Administrators may choose to automatically perform IPS packet logging, which saves packets for detailed analysis when an IPS signature is matched. Saved packets can be viewed and analyzed on the FortiGate unit or by using third-party analysis tools. Packet logging is also useful in determining false positives.

Custom signatures

Custom IPS signatures can be created to further extend protection. For example, you can use custom IPS signatures to protect unusual or specialized applications, or even custom platforms from known and unknown attacks.

Organizations may use FortiConverter to easily convert Snort signatures for FortiOS use.

Resistant against evasions

Evasion techniques attempt to fool the protocol decoders in IPS products by crafting exotic network streams that would not be handled or reconstructed by the decoders, yet still be valid enough for the target recipient to process. Robust IPS engine is capable of handling both common evasions and sophisticated AETs (Advanced Evasion Techniques) deployed by hackers such as IP Packet Fragmentation, TCP Stream Segmentation, RPC Fragmentation, URL & HTML Obfuscation, and other protocol specific evasion techniques.

Intrusion detection mode

In out-of-band sniffer mode (or one-arm IPS mode), IPS operates as an Intrusion Detection System (IDS), detecting attacks and reporting them but not taking any action against them. In sniffer mode, the FortiGate unit does not process network traffic and instead is connected to a spanning or mirrored switch port, or a network tap. If an attack is detected, log messages can be recorded and alerts sent to system administrators.

Traffic bypass

Since most IPS deployments are in transparent inline mode, active traffic bypass is often desired until normal operation of the device resumes. Some FortiGates offer inbuilt active bypass interfaces while others may use external bypass devices such as the FortiBridge. Administrators are also offered with software fail-open option to tackle instances where the IPS engine fails.

Monitoring, logging, and reporting

FortiOS empowers organizations to implement security best practices that require continuous examination of their threat status and adaptation to new requirements. The FortiView query widgets provide useful analysis data with detailed and contextual session information, which can be filtered, ranked, and further inspected. System events can also be archived via logs, which in turn can generate useful trending and overview reports.