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Volkswagen Mexico Drives off Network Threats with Fortinet Enterprise Security Solutions
With annual revenue of $166 billion, Volkswagen is ranked #14 on Fortune's Global list of top companies and is Europe's largest car manufacturer. Volkswagen Mexico is responsible for 300 dealerships representing the Volkswagen brand as well as Bentley, Porsche, Seat, Audi and VW commercial trucks.
Volkswagen Mexico's previous MPLS open network had no network security solution in place, so when a virus or malware hit the network, it was quickly distributed throughout the 300 dealerships and would disable the entire network. After evaluating multiple security vendors, Volkswagen narrowed their search down to Juniper and Fortinet. Fortinet's strong management solution, which allows Volkswagen to centrally manage and create rules specific to each dealership, was the deciding factor in purchasing the FortiGate solution.
"Using Fortinet appliances, we have been able to apply high technology to solve to a business problem - protecting our assets while controlling costs. In doing so, we've now achieved a good ROI for each network connection and improved the productivity of our employees," said Glenn Pereira Espinoza, information systems manager for Volkswagen Mexico. "No longer does our IT staff have to worry about viruses proliferating and taking down the entire network."
The Secured Network Topography
An enterprise-class FortiGate-1000 appliance is located at Volkswagen Mexico's headquarters and is connected to FortiGate appliances located at the 300 distributed dealerships to provide point-to-point VPN connectivity by serving as a VPN concentrator. Each of the 300 dealerships has either a FortiGate-100A, FortiGate-80C or FortiGate-60 appliance. The model of the appliance is determined by the number of users at each dealership. These FortiGate appliances are being used for firewall, IPS, VPN, Web content filtering, antivirus and anti-spam protection.
Volkswagen has also deployed four FortiMail appliances to protect from unwanted spam traversing the network of some of the network nodes: for example AFASA, the credit division of Volkswagen that is responsible for all credit applications.
Information security is considered a critical service for VW and their national network of dealers, so they were very careful in selecting the right integrator. Looking for a managed service security provider (MSSP) they selected TI America, a Fortinet partner in Latin America and trusted advisor to Volkswagen Mexico. TI America is responsible for all policy, management and operation of the entire VM Mexico network. By connecting directly to a FortiManager-400 at Volkswagen's headquarters, TI America is able to make adjustments to the policies and rules in place to help protect the network. TI America can also easily diagnose and remotely fix a network problem at a dealership via the FortiManager. Dealership employees do not have to be technically proficient with FortiGate appliances, and the consistent GUI across all FortiGate platforms allows the TI America to easily manage the appliances without additional training.
"The global brand of quality that Volkswagen represents is deserving of the world-class protection that Fortinet offers, and we are very pleased to be able to help secure their network in an economical and efficient way," said Pedro Paixao, regional director for Fortinet Latin America. "Fortinet's combination of broad security and central management allows large enterprises such as Volkswagen to easily manage both core and distributed networks, saving companies both capital and operation expenses."
Fortinet's FortiGate systems are ASIC-accelerated security appliances that integrate essential security applications such as antivirus, firewall, VPN, intrusion prevention, Web content filtering, anti-spam and traffic shaping. All FortiGate systems are kept up to date automatically by Fortinet's FortiGuard® Network, which helps ensure protection against the most damaging, content-based threats from email and Web traffic such as viruses, worms, intrusions, other unwanted network traffic and more - around the clock and around the world.
About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)
Fortinet is a leading provider of network security appliances and the market leader in Unified Threat Management or UTM. Fortinet solutions were built from the ground up to integrate multiple levels of security protection -- including firewall, VPN, antivirus, intrusion prevention, Web content filtering, spyware prevention and antispam -- designed to help customers protect against network and content level threats. Leveraging a custom ASIC and unified interface, Fortinet solutions offer advanced security functionality that scales from remote office to chassis-based solutions with integrated management and reporting. Fortinet solutions have won multiple awards around the world and are the only security products that are certified in five programs by ICSA Labs: Firewall, Antivirus, IPSec VPN, Network IPS and Antispam. Fortinet is based in Sunnyvale, California.
Copyright © 2009 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved. The symbols ® and ™ denote respectively federally registered trademarks and unregistered trademarks of Fortinet, Inc., its subsidiaries and affiliates. Fortinet's trademarks include, but are not limited to, the following: Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiGuard, FortiManager, FortiMail, FortiClient, FortiCare, FortiAnalyzer, FortiReporter, FortiOS, FortiASIC, FortiWiFi, FortiSwitch, FortiVoIP, FortiBIOS, FortiLog, FortiResponse, FortiCarrier, FortiScan, FortiDB and FortiWeb. Other trademarks belong to their respective owners. Fortinet has not independently verified statements or certifications herein attributed to third parties.