A cybersecurity company is offering free training courses to help keep businesses cyber-safe.
Fortinet has made all its online training programs free for the remainder of 2020 to address the skills gap in the cybersecurity industry, outlined in the 2019 (ISC)2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study. The study found that nearly two-thirds of companies lacked the skilled staff required to operate securely.
The generous gesture comes as companies around the world have transitioned to remote working to comply with lockdown measures introduced to slow the spread of COVID-19.
“The current reality has forced many organizations to face rapid change and new risks as they’ve transitioned to remote workforce models. IT teams are under pressure to effectively secure their organizations, in very dynamic environments which require broad security skill sets," said John Maddison, EVP of products and CMO at Fortinet.
“As both a technology company and a learning organization, we are making our entire online, self-paced catalogue of advanced training courses available for free so that any IT professional can expand timely knowledge and skills on-demand as needed to effectively protect their organizations.”
From today, Fortinet's entire catalog of 24 self-paced advanced security courses is free to access. Topics covered by the courses include Secure SD-WAN, public cloud security, and secure access.
The programs are designed to help security professionals expand their playbook while also providing "students and anyone looking to start a career in cybersecurity the opportunity to learn new skills or upskill."
Recorded lab demos for these courses will be available for on-demand viewing and supplemented with regularly scheduled live sessions with Fortinet Certified Trainers.
The majority of courses are from the official Network Security Expert Institute curriculum. Fortinet established the NSE Institute in 2015, comprised of the NSE training and certification program, the Fortinet Network Security Academy, and the Fortinet Veterans program, to educate the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.
As part of the program’s free training catalog, Fortinet provides foundational cyber-awareness courses for anyone through levels NSE 1 and NSE 2. In addition, the FortiGate Essentials training was recently added as an additional course for anyone interested in learning how to use firewall policies, user authentication, routing, and SSL VPN.