Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Fortinet FortiNAC comparison

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator is the primary secure point of approved access into the Fortinet network, authorizing users, reviewing access permissions, and relaying the information to all Fortigate devices for comparison with identity-based protocols. Fortinet FortiAuthenticator is a top-ranked authorization and SSO solution.

Appropriate secure access is fundamental to every role in an enterprise ecosystem. It is an integral function of every organization to ensure that every access and privilege is secure and to mitigate any possible risk to an organization. Approved users should only have access to the necessary information when they need it, from the appropriate location(s) to safeguard an organization's security at all times.

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator is available as an appliance, virtual machine, or in the cloud.

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator Methods

• FSSO: FortiAuthenticator Single sign-on user will easily identify users and assign role or group access based on preset identity-based protocols. FortiAuthenticator integrates well with third-party LDAP or active directories, is very flexible, and combines these methods to provide effective security.
  
  
• Active Directory Polling: Active directory access is securely identified by consistent polling of domain controllers. As users log in, username, IP address, and other details are logged into the database and can be shared across devices as directed by FortiAuthenticator protocols.
  
  
• FortiAuthenticator Portal and Widgets: If a user system does not support AP polling, or for other reasons it is not feasible, FortiAuthenticator offers a unique secure authentication portal. Users can be manually authenticated and, to diminish the effect of numerous logins, an intuitive set of widgets is available to integrate into an organization's ecosystem that will automatically grant access to users when they access the organization's intranet homepage.
  
  
• RADIUS Accounting Login: For organizations that use RADIUS authentication, RADIUS Accounting is available for user identification. This process will prompt user access information (IP and group, etc.) and eliminate the need for multiple levels of authentication.

Reviews from Real Users

Ernesto C., Presales Engineer at a comms service provider, shares,

”Key Features and Benefits

1. Two-factor/OTP Authentication with FortiToken: Enforce user-based policies. Fortitoken is available in soft and hard versions for flexible usage. Most Valuable in Mobile Phones App for OTP.
2. Integration with LDAP and AD: This solution integrates with existing enterprise systems and technologies from diverse vendors of user information management systems.
3. LPAD/AD/RADIUS/SYSLOG/KERBEROS/REST API/FSSO and Web Portals: There is flexible integration with these services.
4. It is usable in network, WAN, wireless, and VPN Scenarios.
5. The domain and guest-users support are good.”

Ibrahim M., Senior Network & Security Engineer at a tech services company, relates, "The initial setup is a valuable point on Fortinet products. Most of the time, putting the theory into practice on the devices is quite friendly and straightforward. As long as you can read English you can find your way around the solution and make it work. This is a high value point on Fortinet - the way everything is laid out in the web UI is user-friendly and quite straightforward. The UI is quite simple."

Fortinet's FortiNAC is a network access control solution that provides visibility, control, and automated response for everything that connects to the network, enhancing the security fabric. FortiNAC protects against Internet of Things (IoT) threats, extends control to third-party devices, and orchestrates automated responses to a variety of networking events.

Using many information and behavior sources, FortiNAC delivers extensive profiling of even headless devices on your network, allowing you to precisely identify what's on your network.

You can change the configurations of switches and wireless equipment from more than 70 vendors to implement micro-segmentation regulations. You can also extend the security fabric's reach in diverse contexts.

With FortiNac, you can respond in seconds to events in your network to stop attacks from spreading. When the relevant behavior is seen, FortiNAC offers a rich and customized set of automation policies that can rapidly trigger configuration changes.

Fortinet FortiNAC Features

Fortinet FortiNAC has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

• Agent or agentless (automated) scanning of the network for device detection and classification

• Generates a list of all the devices on the network.

• Evaluates the risk of each network endpoint.

• Consolidates the architecture to make deployment and management easier

• Gives wide support for third-party network devices to maintain compatibility with current network infrastructure,

• Automates the process of onboarding a large number of endpoints, users, and visitors.

• Enables network segmentation and enforces dynamic network access restriction.

• Reduces the time it takes to contain a problem from days to seconds.

• Reduces investigation time by reporting events to SIEM with detailed contextual data.

Fortinet FortiNAC Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing DX Spectrum. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

• Automatic response: FortiNAC will continuously monitor the network, analyzing endpoints to ensure they meet their profile. FortiNAC will rescan devices to verify that MAC-address spoofing does not compromise the security of your network access. FortiNAC can also keep an eye out for unusual traffic patterns. The FortiGate appliances are used in conjunction with this passive anomaly detection. When a compromised or vulnerable endpoint is identified as a threat, FortiNAC initiates a real-time automatic response to confine the endpoint.
  
  
• Total device visibility: FortiNAC monitors the entire network and provides total visibility. FortiNAC searches your network for users, applications, and devices. FortiNAC may then profile each element based on observed attributes and reactions, as well as drawing on FortiGuard's IoT Services, a cloud-based database for identification look-ups, using up to 21 distinct techniques.

• Dynamic network management: Once the devices and users have been identified, FortiNAC allows for extensive network segmentation to allow devices and users access to critical resources while preventing unauthorized access. FortiNAC employs dynamic role-based network access control to conceptually establish network segments by grouping similar applications and data together to restrict access to a certain set of users and/or devices. If a device is compromised in this way, its capacity to travel through the network and target other assets is constrained. FortiNAC assists in the protection of sensitive data and assets while maintaining compliance with internal, industry, and government standards and directives. Assuring the integrity of devices before they join the network reduces the chance of malware spreading.

Reviews from Real Users

Fortinet FortiNAC stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its robust network segmentation and its device visibility. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

A Senior Proposal Manager at a tech services company writes of the solution, “The network segmentation is the most important part of the solution. The integration with the Zero Trust Access solution is a crucial part of segmenting your network.”

Eranjaya K., Security Engineer at Eguardian lanka, notes, “We use Fortinet FortiNAC to receive excellent visibility of our network for traffic and what devices are connected to prevent attacks.” He adds, “I have found Fortinet FortiNAC to be scalable.”