Keysight Technologies has announced that its APS-M8400 network cybersecurity test platform will be used by Fortinet to validate the hyperscale DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) defence capabilities of its next generation firewall (NGFW), the FortiGate 4800F.

The APS-M8400 is recognised as the industry's first and highest density 8-port 400GE Quad Small Form Factor Pluggable Double Density network security test platform.

As cyberattacks undergo an exponential growth curve, with DDoS attacks alone witnessing a 40% increase in the past six months, the scale of these threats is also expanding. A recent example of such a significant strike was the Rapid Reset attack, which peaked at a staggering 398 million requests per second (RPS).

The FortiGate 4800F NGFW, developed by Fortinet, operates on 16 NP7 network processors. This was done to assist service providers, data centre operators and carriers, to protect their vital networks from hyperscale DDoS attacks and other cybersecurity threats, while également processing multi-terabit volumes of genuine customer traffic via the expanding adoption of 400GE.

While the performance and security credentials of the FortiGate 4800F NGFW needed to be validated before it was launched onto a live customer network, Fortinet chose Keysight's APS-M8400 as a suitable application and security test solution for this task.

With the APS-M8400, Fortinet was able to validate the cybersecurity capabilities of the FortiGate 4800F NGFW, which effectively defended an 800 Gbps layer 2-3 DDoS attack while still delivering 2.2 Tbps of legitimate layer 4-7 traffic. This did not overtax the CPU, memory usage, or system response time.

The APS-M8400 generated 3 Tbps of valid and malicious traffic in one single test, thereby validating the hyperscale firewall protection offered by the FortiGate 4800F. The 8x400GE QSFD-DD interfaces of the APS-M8400 can fan out to 200/100/50/40/25/10GE, giving Fortinet the flexibility to examine multiple port configurations.

John Maddison, Executive Vice President of Products and Chief Marketing Officer, Fortinet, said, "The FortiGate 4800F is the industry's fastest compact hyperscale firewall, offering carrier-grade performance and scalability to safeguard datacentres and service providers as cyberattacks continue to accelerate at an unprecedented pace.

The NGFW delivers the necessary 400GE port density, multi-terabit application throughput, and session scalability to protect customers against DDoS attacks. This is validated by Keysight's innovative APS-M8400 8x400GE cybersecurity test platform."

Ram Periakaruppan, Vice President and General Manager, Keysight Network Test and Security Solutions, weighed in, "It is vital that carriers, service providers and data centres protect their critical infrastructure from these attacks to continue serving the hyperscale volumes of legitime traffic that continue to grow at a rapid pace. Keysight's APS-8400 helps network equipment manufacturers like Fortinet validate that their solutions are up to the task."