Fortinet Interview Questions

1. Tell me who started Fortinet and when?

Ken Xie and Micheal Xie are brothers who founded Fortinet in 2000. Fortinet is an American multinational company that develops cybersecurity solutions.

2. Tell me something about Fortinet’s FortiGate?

FortiGate was the first and primary product of Fortinet. It is a physical firewall that provides protection against automated visibility and malware to eliminate attacks. FortiGate includes web filtering, automated threat protection, Secure Socket Layer(SSL) inspection, and IPS(Intrusion Prevention System). It also contains Artificial intelligence to detect threats proactively.

3. Is Fortinet FortiGate a good firewall?

Whenever someone wants to buy a firewall, he checks whether the firewall provides good security or not. He will also check if the firewall is at a reasonable price or not, as the Fortinet FortiGate firewall offers robust security and comes at an affordable price(starting from 37,987).

4. Tell something about a traditional firewall?

A traditional firewall is a network security device that statefully examines the network traffic entering and exiting points within the network based on state, port, and protocol. Traditional firewalls can only track traffic on 2-4 layers; this makes traditional firewalls less effective to provide the protection needed to handle all the advanced cyber threats happening in this digital era.

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5. What do you know about a next-generation firewall?

A next-generation firewall is not only a network security device that statefully examines the network traffic entering and exiting point within the network based on state, port, and protocol. It also includes many additional features like:

• Integrated intrusion prevention
• Application control and awareness
• Sandbox integration
• Web filtering
• Antispam, Antivirus, Anti-malware
• Advanced threat protection
• Deep Packet Inception

 All these features make the next-generation firewall much better when compared to the traditional firewall.

6. Give me any three differences between traditional and next-generation firewalls?

7. What do you know about Fortinet security fabric?

Fortinet Security Fabric controls the entire digital attack surface of an organization to reduce the risk. It also provides broad visibility to address many security challenges and eliminates the complexity of supporting multiple point products.

8. List a few security challenges that Fortinet Security Fabric addresses?

Fortinet Security Fabric addresses the below security challenges:

1. Expanding attack surface
2. Advanced threat landscape
3. Grater ecosystem complexity
4. Increasing regularity demands

9. Why do we have to use Fortinet UTM?

Many firewalls and router-based hardware are having lack to provide the ability to see the applications that are crossing the network and making decisions based on this data. But Fortinet UTM provides the availability to see the applications that are traversing the network. Due to this information, the administrator can make decisions on whether to deny or allow the traffic.

10. What is integrated threat management?

Integrated threat management is a security approach that consolidates various security components within one application or platform for an IT enterprise architecture.

ITM emerged as a response to increasingly complicated and persistent malicious attacks by hackers and others intent upon damaging systems.

11. What are the various encryption mechanisms available in Fortigate Firewall?

Two different encryption mechanisms are available in the Fortigate firewall they are:

1. Advanced Encryption Standard
2. Data Encryption Standard

12. What do you know about FortiCloud?

FortiCloud is a platform of Fortinet that delivers security and management services. With FortiCloud, customers can easily connect, protect and deliver their applications and data on-premise and within the cloud.

13. List the benefits of FortiCloud?

Three primary benefits of using FortiCloud are:

1. FortiCloud saves us time and resources
2. Offers clear visibility
3. Extended Fabric security

14. What is FortiOS?

FortiOS is a purpose-built, security-hardened operating system that controls all the networking and security capabilities within FortiGates across your whole network with one inherent operating system.

15. What is the operating system used by FortiOS?

FortiOS uses the Linux operating system kernel and various other free software products licensed under GNU GPL.

16. Why is FortiAI designed?

FortiAI is specifically designed for security operations teams for investigating threats. FortiAI uses Artificial neural networks and Artificial Intelligence to detect and analyze threats based upon continuous learning algorithms.

17. What is the latest version of FortiAI?

The latest version of FortiAI is FortiAI V1.5, released on March 30, 2021.

18. What are the key features of FortiGate?

The top five Fortinet FortiGate key features are:

1. Security ratings: with the help of security ratings, we can affirm security measures.
2. Threat Protection: protects antivirus, web filtering, and malware.
3. Anomaly-based detection: anomaly-based detection will investigate the traffic and alerts if it finds any attack behavior.
4. Threat Intelligence: threat intelligence protects our network from masked and known threats.
5. Automated risk assessment: automated risk assessment examines our network automatically and creates reports.

19. What is the main purpose of FortiMail in a transport mode?

When delivering Email messages, the purpose of the Fortimail in a transport mode is to check for any virus, it later checks the content of the message payload, then it inspects for spam. Finally, it performs a routing lookup to determine the next hop within MTA.

20. Instead of manually configuring the Email data, can the FortiMail administrator get the Email data from the LDAP server?

Yes, it is possible in the LDAP profile section, go to “User query options” and “authentication”, then connect the profile to the domain that is configured locally.

21. List the actions taken against a source IP address that creates invalid or spam E-mail messages when utilizing the sender reputation upon a FortiMail Unit?

• With a temporary failure, Fortimail delays the messages sent by that IP address.
• With a permanent failure, Fortimail rejects the messages sent by that IP address.
• Fortimail restrains all the messages sent by that IP address.

22. Which session of SMTP is defined as incoming?

Protected domains of SMTP are defined as incoming.

23. What is the use of VPN?

VPN is abbreviated as Virtual Private Network used to mask your IP(Internet Protocol) address. It connects a private connection from a public wi-fi connection. A VPA is a vital tool for anonymity and privacy when you are using the public Internet.

24. List the types of VPN?

There are different VPNs are used for different cases, but the three main types of VPNs are:

1. Remote access
2. Intranet-based site-to-site
3. Extranet-based site-to-site

25. What do you know about individual VPNs?

Individual VPNs are generally used for the personal use of individuals. Individual VPN enables users to connect to a secure remote server to obtain a private network. Reputable services incorporate encryption to assure the individual’s security is not compromised.

26. What do you know about corporate VPN?

Organizations use the corporate VPN because it gives their employees secure access to an end-to-end encrypted connection to the cloud resource on the organization’s network.

Corporate VPN encryption offers a secure network connection over the employee’s devices, no matter where operators are working.

27. What are the points to consider before selecting the VPN?

Considering the below points may help you to select a suitable VPN:

1. Paid or Free
2. Data privacy protection
3. Secure communications protocols
4. Scale and capacity
5. Availability of Kill Switch

28. What are the back-end servers used to offer Recipient Verification?

SMTP and LDAP are the servers used to offer recipient verification.

29. What is the use of Server Mode in FortiMail?

FortiMail unit will function as a full-featured email by using a Server mode which is an operational mode. Without server mode, Fortimail is just a mail relay agent.

30. What does a Flash memory contain in a Local storage structure of the Fortimail unit?

The contents of flash memory in a local structure of the Fortimail unit are– Firmware images with certificates and system configuration.