JODAN, Sept. 30, 2009 - Fortinet® - a market-leading network security provider and worldwide leader of unified threat management (UTM) solutions today announced that Zain Group, formerly known as MTC (Mobile Telecommunications Company), has deployed Fortinets FortiGate® carrier-class security chassis as the cornerstone of its managed security services and to address its own security needs. Zain leverages FortiGates security virtualization and integrated protection to offer superior security services to its clients.

Zain, a multinational corporation headquartered in Kuwait, is a leading mobile and data services operator with a commercial footprint in 23 Middle Eastern and African countries and a workforce of over 15,000. The operator provides a comprehensive range of mobile voice and data services to over 64.7 million active individual and business customers (as of March 31, 2009). Zain planned to introduce a managed security service for its broadband and leased lines customers as it would represent a strong value-add and a compelling selling point to its offering.

According to Mohammad Haj Ali, senior network administrator at Zain: ÏOutsourcing selected security responsibilities by forming a partnership with a MSSP such as Zain can be a good option for enterprises that do not want the responsibility of managing their own security. Although those enterprises still own their information security and business risk, contracting with a third party allows them to share risk management and mitigation approaches.

After selecting Fortinets FortiGate carrier-grade solution, Zain conducted a two-month in-depth study of the appliance with Fortinets implementation partner OFFTEC. The final implementation took just three days to complete.

Zain selected Fortinets FortiGate-5020 multi-threat security system because it offered complete threat protection within a single solution (firewall, IPS, VPN, traffic shaping, antivirus, antispyware, antispam, web filtering, and application control), was simple to implement and the licensing model allows Zain to scale its subscriber base at no additional cost. The new system provides a scalable platform that is 10-Gigabit Ethernet ready and delivers throughput ranging from 5 to 70 Gbps while maintaining ultra-low latency for even the most time-sensitive applications.

Fortinets FortiGate system provides Zain with security virtualization with the possibility to manage up to 250 virtual domains (VDOM) per FortiGate module and up to 3500 VDOMs per chassis. Through its FortiGate-5020 chassis, Zain can isolate the security services and management provided to each customer while enjoying maximum scalability.

ÏMany telco operators and service providers have chosen Fortinets security platform for their managed security services and we are pleased to add Zain to our customer list, said Hatem Ali, country manager at Fortinet. ÏOur FortiGate carrier-grade chassis allow our customers to deploy, manage and support multiple security technologies within one security platform that can scale in time, thereby increasing the profitability of their security services.

The implementation of Fortinets system is still in a testing phase. Once this phase completed, Zain plans to start offering managed security services to its customers worldwide.