Fortinet’s Award-Winning Security Awareness and Training Service Now Available to 30,000 Schools Across Saudi Arabia  

The Fortinet Security Awareness and Training Service is being offered at no cost to primary and secondary schools across KSA, supporting the government’s efforts to close the cyber skills gap and create a cyber-aware workforce

RIYADH:

Fortinet®, the global cybersecurity leader driving the convergence of networking and security, has announced that its Security Awareness and Training Service is now available at no cost to 6 million students across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The service launches with two content pieces – a dedicated Security Awareness Curriculum to help prepare students for safely navigating the digital world, and an online training for educational staff to enable them to be able to identify and stop cyber-attacks and create a more cyber-informed culture in their classrooms.

The Fortinet Security Awareness and Training Service originally launched in the U.S. and was tied to the White House’s Cyber Education and Workforce Initiatives, where Fortinet participated in important discussions around solutions to help address the significant talent shortage affecting the cybersecurity industry. Since then, the Education Edition has been launched in 6 countries – the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, and now the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Improved Cyber Awareness for Students and Staff

With the help of teachers around the world, Fortinet wants students to learn how to apply cybersecurity skills to their digital interactions at school, at home, and everywhere they go. Developed for teachers, by teachers, the Security Awareness Curriculum includes lessons for students aged between 4-18, covering Fortinet’s ‘Cyber Seven’ – Online Presence, Digital Safety, Secure Privacy, Ethical Integrity, Digital Impact, the Cybersecurity Landscape, and Online Information. The service also aligns to NIST 800-50 and NIST 800-16 guidelines, providing a turnkey offering including an intuitive administrative interface for campaign building, monitoring, and reporting.

School staff will also be given the skills and knowledge they need to help prevent them from falling victim to common threats, such as social engineering attempts used by cyber criminals to access the sensitive information of students, parents, and more. Through a series of awareness assets and training modules, staff will learn about issues such as data privacy and how to minimize the impact of breaches caused by human error.

Fortinet Supports KSA’s Mission to Address the Local Talent Shortage

In line with its Vision 2030 initiative, the Saudi government has invested $1.2 billion to improve the digital skills of 100,000 Saudi students by 2030, with a focus on cybersecurity and programming.

In addition to the launch of its Security Awareness and Training Service, Fortinet has several initiatives to support Vision 2030’s efforts to address the local talent shortage. This includes building a program for recent graduates in KSA and signing agreements with universities and other local academic institutions as part of the Academic Partner Program, providing Fortinet Training Institute certification curriculum to Saudi students as they prepare for a career in cybersecurity.

Fortinet’s Commitment to Train 1 million People in Cybersecurity by 2026

In the latest Fortinet 2024 Cybersecurity Skills Gap Global Research Report, 87% of organizations said they had experienced one or more security breaches in 2023, up from 84% in 2022. A high number of leaders attribute those breaches in part to a lack of cybersecurity skills among IT professionals.

As part of the company’s mission to train 1 million people in cybersecurity by 2026, Fortinet is committed to expanding cybersecurity awareness to as many as possible to make a significant difference in addressing the skills gap. To help advance this pledge, Fortinet works with more than 700 Authorized Academic Partners in 100 countries and territories around the world to integrate Fortinet’s award-winning NSE training and certification courses into their curriculum for students.

Supporting Quotes

Sami AlShwairakh, Senior Regional Director, KSA, Fortinet

“Amidst a landscape of increasingly sophisticated threats and a growing global skills gap, we’re proud to be launching our award-winning Security Awareness and Training service at no cost to every public and private school in KSA. Not only will this help to raise cyber awareness, but it will be pivotal in empowering local talents as we seek to secure the Kingdom’s digital transformation journey.”

Khalid Abdeltam, Director of Technology and eLearning, American International School in Riyadh

“As cyber attacks continue to rise, particularly against educational institutions, the support from Fortinet has been invaluable in raising awareness and educating our community. With a comprehensive range of training specifically designed for the education sector, we are thrilled to introduce these resources to our faculty and staff. We are also eager to integrate this training into our K-12 curriculum, empowering our students to become responsible digital citizens.”

Interested in joining? Access the package through the Security Awareness Curriculum webpage by clicking the button ‘Register to access Curriculum’.

Additional Resources

• Learn more about Fortinet’s Security Awareness and Training Service.
• Learn about Fortinet’s free cybersecurity training, which includes broad cyber awareness and product training. As part of the Fortinet Training Advancement Agenda (TAA), the Fortinet Training Institute also provides training and certification through the Network Security Expert (NSE) Certification, Academic Partner, and Education Outreach
• Visit com/trust to learn more about Fortinet innovation, collaboration partners, product security processes, and enterprise-grade products that contribute to delivering proven cybersecurity, everywhere you need it.
• Learn more about Fortinet’s commitment to product security and integrity, including its responsible product development and vulnerability disclosure approach and policies.
• Follow Fortinet on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Subscribe to Fortinet on our blog or YouTube.

-END-

About Fortinet

Fortinet is a driving force in the evolution of cybersecurity and the convergence of networking and security. Our mission is to secure people, devices, and data everywhere, and today we deliver cybersecurity everywhere you need it with the largest integrated portfolio of over 50 enterprise-grade products. Well over half a million customers trust Fortinet’s solutions, which are among the most deployed, most patented, and most validated in the industry. The Fortinet Training Institute, one of the largest and broadest training programs in the industry, is dedicated to making cybersecurity training and new career opportunities available to everyone. Collaboration with esteemed organizations from both the public and private sectors, including CERTs, government entities, and academia, is a fundamental aspect of Fortinet’s commitment to enhance cyber resilience globally. FortiGuard Labs, Fortinet’s elite threat intelligence and research organization, develops and utilizes leading-edge machine learning and AI technologies to provide customers with timely and consistently top-rated protection and

actionable threat intelligence. Learn more at https://www.fortinet.com, the Fortinet Blog, and FortiGuard Labs.