What’s new in FortiOS 6.4

I attended to a webinar about What’s new in FortiOS 6.4 several weeks ago, and I would like to highlight the most interesting security features from my point of view. There are lots of new features. Some of them more interesting than others. Some of them more useful than others. Anyway, the best is testing by your own. These new security features and improvements will be the trends of many others firewall manufacturers and also the security protection features of many companies.

The new FortiOS 6.4 has improved the SD-WAN functionality and the easy of use. For instance, IPv4 policies and IPv6 policies are consolidated in the same policy configuration. FGSP (FortiGate Session Life Support) supports UTM inspection on asymmetric traffic which is great because it means Fortinet is working to improve this protocol. Who knows if we will be able to configure a cluster with different models in the next version. There is also a bandwidth test button and a bandwidth monitor in WAN interfaces which are really useful for Internet speed tests and monitoring bandwidth in real time. What’s more, we already have an spectrum analysis tool with this new version. It is usually an expensive tool but it's free with FortiOS 6.4. We only need FortiGate + FortiAP. These are some interesting new security features for Security-Driven Networking.

Spectrum Analysis

FortiOS is increasingly integrated with more cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, Alibaba, OCI or Google Cloud. This new version also supports Rackspace Cloud. Therefore, we already can deploy FortiGate instances in most cloud platforms. We’ll have the same GUI in cloud instances than physical and virtual firewall devices. Moreover, PAYG allows to add more CPU and RAM as we grow.

AWS autoscaling group for dynamic address objects

Zero-Trust Network Access has also two interesting new security features. The first one is FortiGate has a small NAC module which will be really useful for branch offices with small and medium FortiGate devices. Therefore, FortiNAC is not necessary in these small networks. However, FortiSwitch is necessary. The second interesting security feature is the new IoT subscription service which updates the IoT device database automatically. We no longer have to wait for firmware upgrading to detect new IoT devices such as new smartTVs.

FortiSwitch NAC Policies

The last but not the least important is the new features of the Fabric Management Center. FortiView and Monitor disappear. We can add this information from the dashboard with widgets. We no longer have to create a group for each Active Directory group but FSSO connector detect all groups and are ready for use in the firewall policies. There are also new automation action and improvements with Webhook. Actually, there are lots of new features regarding Fabric Management Center which I encourage you to read and test.

Webhook Automation

 

That’s all my friends. Read, test and play with this new FortiOS version.