How To Achieve Compliance with Fortinet: From PCI DSS to GDPR

The widespread change in cybersecurity can make it feel daunting to grasp new compliance-related challenges. Businesses need to ensure their security infrastructures are in line with industry regulations and standards, a critical step. Each standard, from PCI DSS to the EU GDPR or vice versa, according to your perspective, has its own set of hard-to-meet requirements. But there’s no need to panic. These are some of the standards that your Fortinet security infrastructure needs to be aligned with and P J Networks can assist you in this area. What does this mean for an organization and how can Fortinet support Compliance to be Maintained

Key Compliance Standards Summary

Keeping up with compliance standards may seem like trying to find your way through a maze – but knowing the fundamentals can help clarify this process. Here are the most important known standards of Compliance:

• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS): This standard is intended to protect cardholder data and involves a range of security measures for organizations that process, store or transmit payment card information
• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation): Introduced by EU to regulate data privacy, it requires organizations handling personal data of European people maintain standards and uphold the rights specific to a subject
• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act): This is a US law that applies to the healthcare sector, for protecting all sensitive patient health information
• SOX (SARBANES OXLEY): USA laws that aimed to protect shareholders and the general public from accounting errors and fraudulent practices of the enterprise

Enforcing these frameworks involves a series of auditing, monitoring, and reporting processes that only formal security solutions are able to support the correct way.

Compliance-Ready Features of Fortinet

Fortinet provides security solutions that align with the majority of regulatory frameworks in a flexible manner. Fortinet covers compliance-ready by:

• FortiGate Firewalls: To help PCI DSS and GDPR compliance, they allow for segmentation, encryption of sensitive customer data in transit or at rest (such as bandwidth costs) and C&A
• FortiAnalyzer: Includes log management, analytics, and alerting needed for monitoring
• FortiSIEM: It has mature security information and event management features to address continuous monitoring and real-time alerting requirements
• FortiManager: Presents the centralized management for configuration, analytics, and patch management that is essential networking initiatives from compliance audits and reports
• FortiADC: SSL offloading and Load balancing for data encryption and service continuity

In addition, Fortinet products provide real-time threat intelligence and automated responses which help facilitate faster compliance modifications as new regulations are introduced.

Mapping Fortinet Solutions to Compliance Requirements

PCI DSS Compliance

Basically, PCI DSS is all about protecting cardholder data and implementing security controls over the network. A couple of options from Fortinet to address these include:

• Access Control: FortiGate firewalls apply stricter access control to keep cardholder data within the boundaries
• Data Encryption: FortiWeb complies with strong data encryption standards
• Auditing and Monitoring: FortiAnalyzer with FortiSight & FortiSIEM, provide log logging in pre-emptive mode alongside visibility for alerts to mitigate the threat

GDPR Compliance

GDPR – Data protection and user rights are at the focal point here, which is why there are strict regulations around data governance. How You Can Take Fortinet Products:

• Data Encryption: FortiGate and FortiWeb have multifaceted data encryption capabilities
• User Consent and Access: FortiAuthenticator consolidates the management of identities in a way that is compliant with GDPR for user access
• Incident Response: FortiSIEM comes with built-in real-time detection and instant response knowledge, it helps to prevent data breaches

HIPAA Compliance

One of the mechanisms that dictate how sensitive patient information needs to be protected in the healthcare sector: HIPAA. Fortinet assists with maintaining compliance through the following:

• Data Integrity and Security: Tools such as intrusion prevention and access control go a long way in securing patient data with FortiGate
• Monitoring & Auditing: Use FortiAnalyzer for continuous monitoring, logging, and alert generation
• Disaster Recovery: FortiBackup ensures data is securely backed up and restored without violations

SOX Compliance

That being said, since SOX pertains to financial data and certain internal controls, Fortinet solutions fit in seamlessly:

• Financial Data Protection: FortiGate advanced threat protections to secure financial data
• Auditable Logs: FortiAnalyzer maintains complete logs that are essential for SOX audits
• Control Management: FortiManager provides centralized and flexible management controls, compliant with SOX regulations

Compliance Reporting and Auditing with FortiManager

This tool is critical for any organization that is seeking compliance. As a result, this powerful solution provides ‘command-and-control’ functionality for configuring deployments and essential dashboard analytics capabilities needed to achieve compliance mandates. Key features include:

• Centralized Visibility: FortiManager offers a single dashboard to show all the security devices, hence making monitoring and reporting easy
• Policy Management: Maintains security policies consistently throughout the organization ensuring compliance
• Automated Compliance Reports: Automate the generation of compliance-specific reports to meet regulatory needs and assist with audit preparation
• Configuration Audits: Automated check confirms configurations stay in compliance and reduce risk
• Patch Management: Aggressive patching helps reduce those vulnerabilities that lead to a failure in compliance and assure it doesn’t happen again

Flexibility & Assurance: Renting Fortinet Solutions

Renting Fortinet solutions – because compliance is complex and expensive, but there’s a flexible way. P J Networks provides firewall, server, and router rentals that directly match your Fortinet requirements as well as compliance goals. Here are five reasons why renting could be the best move:

• Cost-Effective: Lower upfront costs from renting
• Flexibility: Adjust this based on your needs
• Regular Updates: Automatically included, keeping the staff always up to date
• Support: Professional support to match compliance with your unique needs
• Temporary Use: Organizations that don’t want to buy a lot of hardware and remain up-to-date can use Fortinet solutions as rentals for a short time

Conclusion

Compliance is a critical element of almost every business operation in nearly all industries. Fortinet explores how employing a comprehensive security solution like FortiGate, together with other integrated solutions such as the powerful security tools of FortiAnalyzer, and how to achieve compliance from PCI DSS to GDPR with integration and deployment done right. P J Networks can be your answer in the midst of this chaotic ecosystem. By choosing a Fortinet solution, you maintain flexibility and cost-effectiveness while keeping up to date with continuous support through monthly renting. Governance is done for you with Fortinet and P J Networks, we have the whole package to get you there.