Whether you’re a network geek already working in the tech industry or curious about it, understanding firewalls should be your staple choice. Talking about firewalls, Fortinet’s Fortigate firewall stands tall. Being a strong competitor to the Palo Alto firewall, the market share of Fortinet is at 21.3% as measured in the second quarter of 2023.
If you aspire to become a Network Security Engineer, having firewall knowledge is important. Recruiters look for specific skills and since many organizations, enterprises and even startups look for firewall or network security professionals, you must be familiar with Fortigate firewall interview questions.
Check out the list below for the most updated Fortinet firewall interview questions.
Fortinet Interview Questions and Answers for Beginners
Here are the top 10 Fortinet firewall interview questions for beginners, along with easy-to-understand answers.
1. What is a Fortinet firewall?
- A Fortinet firewall is a network security device that helps protect networks from unauthorized access and threats.
- It inspects incoming and outgoing traffic based on predefined security rules.
2. What is the purpose of a firewall?
- To monitor and control incoming and outgoing network traffic.
- To create a barrier between trusted internal networks and untrusted external networks.
3. What are the key features of Fortinet firewalls?
- Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detects and prevents threats in real-time.
- VPN Support: Allows secure remote access to the network.
- Web Filtering: Blocks access to harmful websites.
- Application Control: Monitors and controls application usage on the network.
4. What is FortiOS?
- FortiOS is the operating system that powers Fortinet devices.
- It provides various features for network security, including firewall, VPN, and threat management.
5. How do you configure a basic firewall rule in Fortinet?
- Log in to the FortiGate interface.
- Navigate to the Firewall Policy section.
- Create a new policy by defining source and destination addresses, services, and action (allow or deny).
6. What is the difference between stateful and stateless firewalls?
- Stateful Firewalls: Track the state of active connections and make decisions based on the context of traffic.
- Stateless Firewalls: Make decisions based solely on predefined rules without tracking connection states.
7. What is a Virtual Private Network (VPN)?
- A VPN creates a secure connection over the internet between a user and a network.
- It encrypts data, ensuring privacy and security while accessing the network remotely.
8. How can you monitor traffic on a Fortinet firewall?
- Use the built-in logging features in FortiOS to track traffic patterns.
- Access the dashboard for real-time statistics on traffic, sessions, and threats.
9. What is an IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) in Fortinet?
- An IPS analyses network traffic for signs of malicious activity.
- It can block or alert administrators about potential threats in real-time.
10. How do you update the FortiGate firmware?
- Log in to the FortiGate interface.
- Navigate to System > Firmware.
- Choose the firmware version you want to install and follow the prompts to update.
Fortinet Interview Questions and Answers for Experienced
Check out the following fortinet firewall interview questions and answers for experienced professionals:
11. What is meant by a Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) and how does a Fortinet firewall match up with this definition?
A Next-Generation Firewall belongs to the third generation family of firewalls. You can consider this firewall as a protection gateway. It is a security tool that helps protect a network by checking the data that comes in and out of it. It does this based on certain rules about how data should behave.
Besides just monitoring traffic, it has several extra features to provide better protection:
- Integrated intrusion prevention: This feature helps block harmful activities or attacks before they can cause damage.
- Application control and awareness: It can recognize and manage different applications running on the network, allowing or blocking them as needed.
- Sandbox integration: This allows suspicious files to be tested in a safe environment to see if they are harmful without affecting the main system.
- Web filtering: It can block access to dangerous or inappropriate websites to keep users safe.
- Antispam, Antivirus, Anti-malware: These features help detect and remove unwanted emails (spam) and harmful software (viruses and malware).
- Advanced threat protection: It offers sophisticated tools to identify and respond to complex threats that might get past basic security measures.
- Deep Packet Inspection: This means examining the actual contents of data packets more closely to catch hidden threats.
Fortinet firewalls, particularly the FortiGate series, are classified as Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) because they offer advanced capabilities beyond traditional firewalls. They perform deep packet inspection, integrate threat intelligence, and provide application awareness, allowing for precise control over network traffic.
With built-in intrusion prevention systems, user identity management, and robust VPN support, FortiGate firewalls enhance security posture. Additionally, they feature advanced malware protection and centralized management through the Security Fabric, creating a cohesive defense strategy against evolving cyber threats.
12. What is Fortinet Security Fabric?
Fortinet Security Fabric is a security architecture designed to provide comprehensive protection for networks, applications, and data. It integrates various security solutions to work together seamlessly, offering a unified approach to cybersecurity.
Here are the key components and features explained simply:
- Firewalls: These act as a barrier between your internal network and external threats, controlling incoming and outgoing traffic.
- Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS): These monitor network traffic for suspicious activity and can block potential threats.
- Antivirus and Anti-Malware: Software that detects and removes malicious software from devices.
- Secure Web Gateways: These protect users from web-based threats by filtering internet traffic.
- Email Security: This protects against phishing attacks and malware delivered through email.
- VPN (Virtual Private Network): This allows secure remote access to the network, encrypting data transmitted over the internet.
The following are the noteworthy features of Fortinet Security Fabric:
- Integration: All components of the Security Fabric work together, sharing information and responding to threats in real-time.
- Visibility: It provides a single view of security across the entire network, making it easier to manage and monitor.
- Automation: Many processes are automated to respond quickly to threats without human intervention.
- Scalability: The architecture can grow with your organization, easily adding new security features or devices as needed.
The following are the benefits of Fortinet Security Fabric:
- Comprehensive Protection: By combining multiple security features, it offers better protection against a wide range of threats.
- Simplified Management: Having everything integrated means easier management through a single dashboard.
- Faster Response Times: With automated threat responses, it can react quickly to potential attacks.
13. What is meant by Open APIs in Fortinet Security Fabric?
Open APIs on Fortinet Security Fabric are application programming interfaces which enable the interaction of different software applications and systems with one another; they work in unison. In simple words, it is the integration of Fortinet’s security product with other tools or a platform.
Here is the detailing:
Open APIs: These are the accessible public interfaces that allow developers to connect and interact with Fortinet’s solutions for security. It provides customization and building of new features.
FortiGate offers a Security Fabric from Fortinet: This is its method of bringing together its broad portfolio of security products into one cohesive system. It provides an all-around security view from the inside out, reaching all across an organization’s network, endpoints, applications, and more.
Using Open APIs, organizations can augment their security capabilities, automate processes, and create customized solutions that specifically meet their needs while ensuring all components of their security architecture work seamlessly together.
14. Explain the process a packet undergoes in a FortiGate firewall from the moment it enters the interface until it exits.
There’s an easy way to describe what happens to a packet going through a FortiGate firewall like this:
- Packet Receipt: The packet shows up at one of the firewall’s interfaces.
- Input Processing: The firewall checks the packet for simple problems that are known, such as if it’s too large or malformed.
- Session Lookup: The firewall finds whether there’s an existing session for this packet. If so, it knows exactly how to process it by following previous communications.
- Policy Check: The firewall checks the permissions that are defined in security policies to determine if the packet is actually permitted to be passed through. It will examine the source and destination addresses, and determine whether the proper services are requested from within the packet.
- NAT: If the packet needs to have the addresses translated, then the firewall simply changes the source or destination IP address.
- Inspection: The firewall inspects the packet for malware or viruses. Sometimes, this means it checks against several threat databases.
- Logging and Monitoring: The firewall logs information about the packet to monitor and later to analyze.
- Forwarding: Once everything is good and the packet is accepted, then it’s forwarded to its destination whether that’s outward from the network or to another internal interface.
- Exit Processing: Finally, the exit processing occurs when a packet is permitted to be released through an interface after performing all the last exit processing steps, including logging and other final verifications.
In this way, the network is protected from malicious traffic, and only legit and safe traffic is passed on.
15. What is meant by the FGCP cluster?
- Expanded as FortiGate Clustering Protocol (FGCP), the FGCP cluster is a system that helps in the aligned working of FortiGate firewalls so that they can work together for better network security and performance.
- Generally, it is a group of two FortiGate firewalls that connect and support each other. It is quite useful especially when one firewall breaks down, the other one covers up for it.
- Therefore, firewalls work in a team in the FGCP cluster. They make the network more secure, reliable and up and running.
16. How can you take backup of the Fortinet firewall configuration?
Here’s a simple example of the commands to be used in backing up the configuration of a Fortinet firewall.
- Backup to Management Station: Use the command backup config management station to save your firewall settings to a computer or server that you manage.
- Backup to USB Device: To save your settings to a USB drive, you would use the command backup config usb.
- ftp command: The ftp command to backup via FTP (FTP is a method of transferring files over the internet) is to manage backup config ftp [details], wherein you would have to give some detail about your FTP server address and the like.
- TFTP: This is another file transfer type of backup. You would use the command run backup config tftp.
These commands ensure you have copies of your firewall settings in different places for safety.
16. How does Fortinet provide support for any kind of issues faced by Network Administrators?
Fortinet helps network administrators in several ways when facing difficulties:
- Technical Support: They have a support team that deals with technical problems. The administrators can reach them via the call, email, or online messaging.
- Online Resources: Different kinds of online resources on the Fortinet website include documentation, FAQs, and articles from a knowledge base that deal with common issues and solutions.
- Community Forums: Fortinet offers community forums for questions, experience sharing, and answer gathering from other users and Fortinet staff.
- Training and Certifications: Fortinet offers training programs and certification for the net administrators for enhancing their skills and knowledge about the products offered by Fortinet.
- Software Updates: Fortinet provides regular updates and patches in order to fix known issues and for security enhancements thus ensuring that the net administrators receive the updated tools.
- Professional Services: To tackle the high-level issues, Fortinet also provides professional services for deployment and even troubleshooting.
17. What is meant by Incoming SMTP Sessions?
Incoming SMTP sessions refer to the connection developed when an email server accepts incoming emails originated from another email server. Some the fundamental requirements involved in incoming SMTP sessions include the following;
- Purpose: The session connections here are with regard to the incoming emails sent from other servers or clients.
- Connection: Whenever an email is sent, the sending server tends to connect to the receiving server over the internet using SMTP abbreviated as Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.
- Port: Normally, SMTP incoming sessions use the port number 25, however other port numbers including 587 and 465 can be used as well, especially on a secure connection.
- Authentication: The receiving server may need to authenticate some servers for accepting the emails.
- Process: The email data sent by the sending server is processed by the receiving server for storing in the mailbox of the recipient.
18. When using a sender reputation on a FortiMail unit, which actions can be taken against a source IP address generating spam or invalid E-mail messages?
When utilizing sender reputation on a FortiMail unit, the following actions can be taken against a source IP address that is generating spam or invalid email messages:
- FortiMail can delay email messages from that source IP address by issuing a temporary failure.
- FortiMail can reject email messages from that source IP address with a permanent failure.
- FortiMail can quarantine all email messages from that source IP address.
19. What is SD-WAN and how does Fortinet Support it?
SD-WAN is software technology that helps in the management and optimization of wide area networks for any organization. It abstracts the hardware in the network while providing centralized control, making it easier for networks to be managed on multiple sites with different traffic.
Key features of SD-WAN are:
- Cost Efficiency: SD-WAN may utilize numerous types of connections such as MPLS, broadband, and LTE to serve its end from which costs associated with traditional WAN solutions could possibly be reduced.
- Increase Performance: It enhances application performance by intelligently routing traffic based on application needs and real-time network conditions.
- Flexibility and Scalability: Organizations can easily add or change location and services without major infrastructure changes.
- Better Security: Most SD-WAN solutions come with in-built security features such as encryption, firewalls, and intrusion detection.
Here’s how Fortinet supports SD-WAN:
- Fortinet provides some of the most secure SD-WAN solutions with the different FortiGate next-generation firewalls (NGFWs). Here are just a few ways Fortinet enables SD-WAN.
- Integrated Security: The strategy of Fortinet integrates security into the functionality provided through its SD-WAN features. This affords the guarantee that all traffic is secured with firewall protection, intrusion prevention, and secure web gateway among other basic protection features.
- Application Awareness: FortiGate devices feature application-aware routing, which allows a firm to handle traffic based on the nature of the applications. This guarantees that any important business applications run at an optimal level.
- Centralized Management: Fortinet provides centralized management on the FortiManager wherein organization easily manage their SD-WAN across different locations with a single interface.
- Real-time Visibility and Analytics: Fortinet offers devices that are capable of having immediate visibility in regards to the networks that are under observation, thus helping organizations make effective decisions and troubleshoot concerns faster.
- Flexible deployment options: With its SD-WAN solution, Fortinet supports on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, giving businesses the flexibility to implement their WAN in whatever form suits them best.
- Support for multi-link connections: Fortinet’s SD-WAN can employ MPLS, broadband Internet, LTE among other connections for optimal performance based on the best available link.
20. How does the FortiGate unit use the Web Cache Communication Protocol (WCCP) to check if a web cache is available?
The FortiGate unit uses a specific method to check the availability of a web cache through the Web Cache Communication Protocol (WCCP). The web cache sends a message similar to “I see you,” which is subsequently recorded by the FortiGate unit.
Bottom Line
In conclusion, preparing for Fortinet firewall interviews requires a solid understanding of fundamental concepts and advanced features of FortiGate firewalls. Familiarity with key topics such as Intrusion Prevention Systems, VPN configurations, and Fortinet Security Fabric will significantly enhance your confidence during the interview process.
By reviewing common Fortinet interview questions and answers, candidates can effectively demonstrate their technical expertise and problem-solving skills. Mastering these questions will not only help in securing a position but also ensure a strong foundation in network security practices.
