Fortinet: From Networking To Cloud Security
Networking is everywhere. This isn't a matter of opinion, but a matter of how everything is connected. Whether you're on-prem, purely in the public cloud, or a combination of both, packets traverse from one location to another. The only difference is physical networks and virtual networks, but packets are packets.
In a realm where hybrid cloud shows just how important networking is, having a product that understands networking at its core is crucial. Not to mention that a proper security implementation is necessary for this level of packet translation.
In this blog post, you'll learn about one company that started with networking, but then implemented cloud technologies - Fortinet.
Fortinet As A Whole
Originally, Fortinet started off as a networking company in 2000. One of the key aspects of Fortinet is that they were one of the first networking companies to give a UI interface to switches, routers, and firewalls. Before Fortinet, you had to live in the terminal, which isn't a bad thing but may have been inconvenient for some engineers who weren't used to living in IOS (Cisco's OS).
Fast forward to 2025, Fortinet is now diving into cloud and more importantly, cloud security. As a networking vendor that focuses heavily on security within firewalls, they're one of the perfect vendors to implement the same security best practices learned over the years to the cloud.
Fortinet has 4 core cloud security and hybrid cloud security products:
- FortiNDR: Network Detection and Response.
- FortiCNAPP: portal for all cloud-native security tools to connect to each other in one place.
- FortiSOAR: Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response
Fortinet Cloud Security Breakdown
As mentioned in the previous section, the three key products are FortiNDR, FortiCNAPP, and FortiSOAR for all things cloud-native and cloud security.
FortiNDR is an on-prem Network Detection and Response solution. NDR is all about scanning the entire network for malicious and/or suspicious behavior. Within FortiNDR, you'll see the use of Machine Learning, which is used to train itself (the product) on suspicious behavior that you'll see within your environment to fully understand what's actually a threat and what may be a false positive.
FortiCNAPP allows you to have all of your tools in one location. Whether it's code-based tools like SAST/DAST, cloud-native security, CDR, IaC security, and a few of the Fortinet security products (like FortiSOAR), you can view them all right from FortiCNAPP. It's the "central location" of sorts.
FortiSOAR implements Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response. SOAR combines threat management, incident response, and overall security management for teams. A big part of it is automation. SOAR removes the low-hanging fruit of manual needs for security engineers.
FortiCNAPP (Lacework)
CNAPP is the cloud-native protection platform. It's a set of tooling for all things starting from your code to where it's deployed in the cloud. FortiCNAPP ingests data from the cloud providers that you give it access to. It continuously scans and then lets you know the deltas. That way, you only have to focus on the issues that actually matter.
You have the ability to either have an agent implemented within your VMs or agentless. With each option, you can allow FortiCNAPP to traverse through your infrastructure and file systems to see what's truly happening within your environment. You can install the agents on VMs or in a Pod via Kubernetes.
FortiCNAPP used to be called Lacework. Lacework was acquired by Fortinet.
