Fortinet partners with local education institutions and allows universal access to network security expert courses

 
Jon McGettigan, Senior Director, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands at Fortinet

“Offering cybersecurity education to the public for free has significant importance for countries like Australia and New Zealand, where there’s a high adoption of new technologies and IT security awareness in everyday life has become an essential skill. As an industry-leader and given our investment in ANZ, Fortinet believes it is our responsibility to help foster the development and ongoing education of cybersecurity talent. By partnering with local education institutions like TAFE SA, and by opening the Network Security Expert program to the public, we’re hoping to increase the number of security workers whose skills will be critical for the growth of the digital economy in ANZ.”

Fortinet has announced that it is providing universal access to its Network Security Expert (NSE) training and certification program, making it available in Australia and New Zealand free of charge. The first education institution in the Asia Pacific region to offer NSE via the Fortinet Network Security Academy (FNSA) is TAFE SA, that has now already commenced classes to train local cybersecurity experts to manage new and advanced threats.

With the public availability of the NSE program, Fortinet is taking steps to engage a new generation of aspiring cybersecurity professionals by providing a gateway to attain the highly desirable and lucrative skills in the growing field of IT security. Fortinet is offering NSE program level 1 courses to the public, and will follow with NSE program levels 2 and 3 in the second quarter of 2017.

FNSA has been established at TAFE SA to help provide a skilled workforce that meets the needs of the IT industry and matches with the economic and employment priorities of South Australia. From code to client to cloud, the Academy brings the training and certification opportunities previously only offered to Fortinet customers and partners to educational institutions, non-profit organisations and veterans programs.

The Academy will provide Fortinet’s industry-recognized Network Security Expert (NSE) training and certification opportunities to participants through theoretical lectures and hands-on laboratory practice. Participating students are equipped with additional knowledge for a successful career in network security.

Fortinet sponsors the training content for staff and examinations for each Academy site, along with supporting instructor preparation.

Closing the Cybersecurity Skills Gap

The recent report from Fortinet’s quarterly Threat Landscape Report for Q4 of 2016 found a continued trend of increasing volume, prevalence, intensity of cyber attacks globally. The report’s findings show that cybercriminals are exploiting three central trends of threat landscape – application exploits, malicious software (malware), and botnets.This threat intelligence was based on over a trillion security events that occurred between Oct 1 and Dec 31, 2016.

An earlier report from the Fortinet Cyber Threat Assessment Program (CTAP) also found unprecedented attack volumes globally, with more than 185 million threat events. The report noted that more than half of respondents across ANZ specifically detected malicious websites, demonstrating that organisations need greater threat protection.

Fortinet has long championed the cause to increase awareness, understanding, and knowledge within the global cybersecurity landscape. Launched in 2015, Fortinet’s NSE program has quickly become an industry-standard in cybersecurity training and certification that fosters the continuing education of IT security professionals worldwide and helps close the cybersecurity skills gap.

Proven Curriculum for Aspiring Cybersecurity Professionals

As the primary program used to develop and maintain the skillsets of Fortinet employees, partners, and end users, Fortinet’s NSE program utilises a multi-level curriculum that progresses from cybersecurity fundamentals and overall context, up to advanced security implementation strategies and technical concepts. This program design has resulted in Fortinet issuing over 50,000 NSE certifications globally.

Public demand for Fortinet’s NSE program also drove the creation of Fortinet’s Network Security Academy (FNSA) for secondary and post-secondary education institutions. These institutions, including TAFE SA in Australia, partner with Fortinet and leverage the NSE curriculum to develop cybersecurity courses currently offered at schools in 46 unique countries. Fortinet hopes to further expand the FNSA offering to more educational institutions in Australia and New Zealand in 2017.

Supporting Quotes

TAFE SA’s Executive Director, Education, Brian Rungie said FNSA strengthens TAFE SA’s reputation as a high-quality provider of in-demand, job ready IT qualifications.

“TAFE SA is excited to offer IT students the opportunity to further boost their employment prospects and careers options through our new partnership with Fortinet’s Network Security Academy. Cybersecurity is certainly a rapidly growing area of employment in Adelaide, Australia and abroad and TAFE SA is ready to match industry demand with the right level and type of training in this vital area.”

Jack Chan, Network and Security Strategist, Fortinet ANZ

“Creating IT security awareness amongst the public more broadly will impact choices. How secure is the Wi-Fi at home? How can parents provide a safe internet for their children? Fortinet offers strong security and web content filtering solutions in secondary and tertiary sectors. Increased awareness and knowledge will assist consumers to make better choices of technologies used at home and on the move.”