Free Training Service for more than 8 Million Staff and Faculty Across U.S. School Districts will Advance Fortinet’s Mission to Close the Cyber Skills Gap

SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 19, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

Sandra Wheatley, Senior Vice President, Customer Marketing, Threat Intelligence and Global Influencer Communications at Fortinet
“Fortinet is proud to participate in the White House National Cyber Workforce and Education Summit to share our expertise and insight based upon our longstanding dedication to closing the cyber skills gap through cross sector collaborations and dialogue. Since the establishment of the Fortinet Training Institute in 2016 and through our Training Advancement Agenda (TAA) initiatives, Fortinet continues to make cybersecurity opportunities accessible to more people, including populations who are often overlooked such as women, minorities and veterans, through training. Today, as part of our pledge to train 1 million people in cybersecurity across the next five years, Fortinet announced a new free training offering to help combat attacks on our educational institutions.”

News Summary
Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated, and automated cybersecurity solutions, today announced that its information security awareness and training service will be made available to schools across the United States free of cost. The announcement coincides with the White House National Cyber Workforce and Education Summit where Fortinet participated in important discussions around solutions to help address the significant talent shortage affecting the cybersecurity industry in the United States.

Fortinet is expanding its existing free training offerings as part of the company’s commitment to train 1 million people in cybersecurity by 2026 to make a significant dent in addressing the skills gap.

Making Cybersecurity Training Accessible to All
A recent report on the state of the cybersecurity workforce found that the global cyber workforce needs to grow 65 percent to effectively defend organizations’ most critical assets. It also found that 2.72 million professionals are needed to fill the current gap. At the same time, Fortinet’s 2022 Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report found that 80% of breaches can be attributed to lack of cybersecurity skills or awareness.

Fortinet is committed to addressing this growing industry issue through training and certifications offered through the Fortinet Training Institute as part of the Training Advancement Agenda (TAA). During the onset of the pandemic in 2020, Fortinet made all its self-paced training courses available to anyone for free to increase access to its training curriculum for everyone, regardless of background or lived experience.

Free Cyber Training for Educators and Academia
Educational institutions are seeing an increase of bring your own devices (BYOD) by students, faculty and administrators, among other IT challenges, leaving them more vulnerable to threats due to the expanding attack surface. As a result, educational institutions must ensure they are securing their critical digital assets and sensitive information about their students.

To help further protect U.S. school districts from cyber threats, Fortinet is making its information security awareness and training service available to schools for free. Schools that take advantage of the free offering will be training their staff and faculty with skillsets and knowledge that could prevent them from falling victim to popular threat methods, such as social engineering attempts, reducing the likelihood of a breach. The service will be available to approximately more than 8 million faculty and staff across the U.S. starting this fall.

Fortinet also works with academia through the Training Institute’s Academic Partner program to help develop a skilled cybersecurity workforce of the future. With more than 400 academic partners in more than 90 countries and territories, this program allows academic partners to integrate Fortinet’s award-winning NSE training and certification courses into their curriculum for students.

Collaborating Across Private and Public Sectors to Address the Skills Shortage
Fortinet is forging partnerships across private and public sectors to help drive a skilled, inclusive, and diverse cybersecurity workforce, including a focus on women, minorities and veterans. As a founding member of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Centre for Cybersecurity and the Cyber Threat Alliance, Fortinet continuously collaborates with world leaders from various sectors, helping shape the future of cybersecurity and build new opportunities in the digital economy.   

Fortinet also has relationships with government agencies and international law enforcement organizations like NATO and Interpol, and critical partners such as KISA, OASIS and MITRE. Additionally, Fortinet is an active contributor as part of WEF’s Partnership Against Cybercrime (PAC). 
  
Additional Resources

  • Learn more about Fortinet’s free cybersecurity training initiative. As part of the Fortinet Training Advancement Agenda (TAA), the Fortinet Training Institute also provides training and certification through the Network Security Expert (NSE) Certification, Academic Partner, and Education Outreach programs.
  • Learn more about Fortinet’s Corporate Social Responsibility vision and approach.
  • Engage in the Fortinet User Community (Fuse). Share ideas and feedback, learn more about our products and technology, and connect with peers.
  • Follow Fortinet on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Subscribe to Fortinet on YouTube.

About Fortinet
Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) makes possible a digital world that we can always trust through its mission to protect people, devices, and data everywhere. This is why the world’s largest enterprises, service providers, and government organizations choose Fortinet to securely accelerate their digital journey. The Fortinet Security Fabric platform delivers broad, integrated, and automated protections across the entire digital attack surface, securing critical devices, data, applications, and connections from the data center to the cloud to the home office. Ranking #1 in the most security appliances shipped worldwide, more than 580,000 customers trust Fortinet to protect their businesses. And the Fortinet NSE Training Institute, an initiative of Fortinet’s Training Advancement Agenda (TAA), provides one of the largest and broadest training programs in the industry to make cyber training and new career opportunities available to everyone. Learn more at https://www.fortinet.com, the Fortinet Blog, or FortiGuard Labs.

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