CASESTUDY

HDFC
The Pioneer and Leader in Housing Finance in India Deploys Challenges
Fortinet Security Solution in its Quest to Have a Rock Solid • Provide network security
Defense Mechanism with additional features
besides VPN
Situation
Established in 1977, HDFC Ltd. is a pioneer and leader in housing finance in India and has turned the Objectives
concept of housing finance for the growing middle class in India into a professionally managed, world-class • Easy management
enterprise. HDFC has assisted more than 3.3 million families to own a home of their own, through housing
loan approvals of more than Rs. 2.65 trillion. HDFC has a wide network of 271 offices reaching out to 2,400 • Seamless usability
towns and cities across India and is serviced by a specialist team of trained and experienced professionals. • High performance
It also has offices in London, Singapore and Dubai and service associates in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Kuwait,
Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia (Al Khobar, Riyadh & Jeddah) to provide housing loan and property
advisory services to NRIs and PIOs. Its unrelenting focus on corporate governance, high standards of Deployment
ethics and clarity of vision, percolate throughout the organization.
FortiGate-1000A
According to Mr. Nilesh Khot, Manager – IT of HDFC Ltd, the company was looking for a security solution FortiGate-620B
that provided easy manageability, seamless usability and high performance. The company had deployed FortiManager
a firewall for the perimeter security of its network, which comprised of the mail server and intranet. This FortiAnalyzer
setup provided packet filtering capabilities to counter the network security threats. As remote access
requirements and Internet based attacks grew; the IT department felt the need to deploy an IPSec VPN
solution with additional capabilities such as firewall, antivirus and anti-spyware, intrusion prevention system Industry
(IPS) and Web filtering capabilities. Finance

Solution
Having evaluated products from various network security vendors such as Juniper, Fortinet® and Check
Point, the IT department mapped the requirements against the available product specifications. Fortinet’s
unified threat management (UTM) solution, specifically the FortiGate® product family, proved to be an
exact fit to the requirements and provided several additional features which made it a natural choice. After
the Fortinet appliances were selected, a pilot project was undertaken for a fortnight. The company was
especially pleased with the FortiGate appliances’ multi-threat functionalities and performance.
The company deployed a FortiGate-1000A and FortiGate-620B appliance, which were able to provide a
complete network security solution. FortiGate appliances can effectively consolidate critical network
security solutions into one unified platform thereby reducing complexity of deployment and management.
Fortinet’s FortiManager™ and FortiAnalyzer™ appliances provide centralized management and monitoring
for the deployed FortiGate appliances.

HDFC’s IT department utilizes the multi-functional ability of the FortiGate appliances to secure the network
gateway. For instance, the pre-configured IPSec functionality is able to provide remote installation and
data transfer to preserve network integrity, consistency and confidentiality from a central management
location with FortiManager. Web content filtering and firewalling capabilities are also utilized to enable
seamless user experience, traffic monitoring, as well as protect users from entering malicious Websites.

HDFC has also turned on the IPS functionality, which provides effective protection from online threats
without affecting the throughput performance and can also enable content scanning. In addition, the
antivirus functionality is turned on to help block out almost 99% of the virus pool attempting to infiltrate the
network.
 For network monitoring and management, HDFC has also deployed
a FortiAnalyzer and FortiManager appliance. Built-in log analysis
provides a central point for consistent analysis of network utilization,
Web activity and attack activity. The network utilization data enables
IT administrators to plan and manage the networks more efficiently
with real-time data.
Success
The Fortinet FortiGate security solution has provided a three-prong
solution for HDFC. First, its UTM security approach featuring firewall,
antivirus, virtual private network and intrusion prevention has
provided a rock solid defense mechanism against potential threats,
such as phishing, data theft, identity theft, online viruses, etc.
Second, the Fortinet solution provides high throughput and
availability, while simultaneously enabling uninterrupted service
delivery. Finally, with an efficient monitoring, logging and reporting
solution, the life of an IT administrator is made easier.

CAS216-0110

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