Fortinet

Early history

In 2000, Ken Xie and his brother Michael Xie co-founded Appligation, Inc., which they renamed ApSecure and finally Fortinet (from the phrase "Fortified Networks").[5] Fortinet introduced its first product, FortiGate, in 2002, followed by anti-spam and anti-virus software.[6]

The company raised $13 million in private funding from 2000 to early 2003.[6] Fortinet's first channel program was established in October 2003.[7] The company began distributing its products in Canada in December 2003 and in the UK in February 2004.[6] By 2004, Fortinet had offices in Asia, Europe, and North America.[8]

Growth and expansion

Fortinet became profitable in the third quarter of 2008.[9] According to market research firm IDC, by November 2009, Fortinet held over 15 percent of the unified threat management market.[10] Also in 2009, CRN Magazine's survey-based annual report card placed Fortinet first in network security hardware, up from seventh in 2007.[11]

In November 2009, Fortinet had an initial public offering, opening on the NASDAQ Global Market under the ticker symbol FTNT.[12] By the end of the first day of trading, the company had raised $156 million.[13] The company later became listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, and became a component of the NASDAQ-100 index.

By 2010, Fortinet had $324 million in annual revenues[6] and held the largest share of the unified threat management market according to IDC.[14]

Recent history

In July 2014, Fortinet announced a technical certification program called the Network Security Expert (NSE) program.[15] In March 2016, Fortinet launched a Network Security Academy to help fill open cybersecurity jobs in the U.S. Fortinet donated equipment and provided information to universities to help train students for jobs in the field.[16] Also in 2016, Fortinet launched a program called FortiVet to recruit military veterans for cybersecurity jobs.[17]

In January 2017, it was announced that Philip Quade, a former member of the NSA, would become the company's chief information security officer.[18]

In 2019, Fortinet's FortiGate SD-WAN and Next Generation Firewall received a "Recommended" rating from NSS Labs.[19]

In September 2021, Fortinet pledged to train one million people in support of President Joe Biden's call to action to address the talent shortage in American cybersecurity.[20]

In March 2022, Fortinet announced the termination of operations in Russia. The company has stopped all sales, support, and professional services within Russia.[21][22]

The same year, NetworkWorld reported that Fortinet had introduced AI and ML-based security services utilizing telemetry from its network.[23]

In June 2025, Fortinet was added to Investor's Business Daily's Big Cap 20 list of top-rated large-cap growth stocks.[24]

Products

Fortinet released its first product, FortiGate, a firewall, in 2002, followed by anti-spam and anti-virus software.[6][43] As functions like anti-spam were added, they were made available in a single product along with the firewall and other functions.[14] FortiGate was updated later to use application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) architecture.[44] The company has used ASIC in several of its products, including to support its SD-WAN features.[45][46]

Initially, FortiGate was a physical, rack-mounted product but later became available as a virtual appliance that could run on virtualization platforms such as VMware vSphere.

In April 2016, Fortinet began building its Security Fabric architecture so multiple network security products could communicate as one platform.[47] Later that year, the company added Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) products.[48] In September 2016, the company announced it would integrate the SIEM products with the security systems of other vendors.[49]

In 2017, Fortinet announced the addition of switches, access points, analyzers, sandboxes and cloud capabilities to the Security Fabric, in addition to endpoints and firewalls.[50][51] Later in 2017, Fortinet created a standalone subsidiary, Fortinet Federal, to develop cybersecurity products for government agencies.[52] Fortinet has received security effectiveness certifications through NSS Labs.[53]

In 2019, Fortinet grew to 21,000 WAN edge customers, according to a Gartner report.[54]

In February 2020, Fortinet released FortiAI, a threat-detection program that uses artificial intelligence.[55][56] In July 2020, Fortinet launched multi-cloud SD-WAN.[57] That year, BT Security selected Fortinet and other Threat Alliance members as Critical Partners.[58]

Vulnerabilities and credential leaks

In September 2021, almost 500,000 login names and passwords for Fortinet VPN devices were published on a hacking forum. The credentials were allegedly scraped from devices vulnerable to a 2018 exploit (CVE-2018-13379).[59]

In January 2025, the credentials and configuration files of over 15,000 FortiGate devices were leaked on a hacking forum.[60] The data is believed to have been obtained from devices vulnerable to a 2022 exploit (CVE-2022–40684).[61]

In November 2025, a critical vulnerability (CVE-2025-64446, 9.1 CVSS) became public affecting FortiWeb Web Application Firewall[62]. The vulnerability allowed attackers to gain full control over the device by exploiting a path traversal vulnerability combined with an authentication bypass[63].

Cybersecurity research

In 2005, Fortinet created the FortiGuard Labs internal security research team.[64]

By 2014, Fortinet had four research and development centers in Asia, as well as others in the US, Canada and France.[65]

In March 2014, Fortinet founded the Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) with Palo Alto Networks in order to share security threat data across vendors.[66] It was later joined by McAfee and Symantec.[67] In 2015, the CTA published a white paper on the CryptoWall ransomware, which detailed how attackers obtained $325 million through ransoms paid by victims to regain access to their files.[68]

In April 2015, Fortinet provided threat intelligence to Interpol in order to help apprehend the ringleader of several online scams based in Nigeria. The scams, which resulted in compromise of business emails and CEO fraud, had cost one business over $15 million.[69] The following year, in March 2016, Fortinet and Cisco joined NATO in a data-sharing agreement to improve their information security capabilities.[70]

Fortinet researchers discovered a spyware that scammed victims by impersonating the IRS.[71] Also in 2017, researchers helped identify malware, called Rootnik, and ransomware, called MacRansom, that targeted Android and MacOS systems respectively.[72]