Fortinet has launched its entire online, self-paced catalogue of advanced Network Security Expert training courses for free.

This includes 24 advanced security courses that cover topics such as Secure SD-WAN, public cloud security and secure access and more.

The majority of courses are from the official Network Security Expert Institute curriculum, which was previously available to Fortinet partners.

Fortinet's NSE Institute now offers multiple levels of free training either for broad cyber awareness learning or technical upskilling. All courses will remain free to anyone who wishes to make use of them for the rest of 2020.

Fortinet EVP products and CMO John Maddison says Fortinet is looking to help organisations adapt to a rapidly changing world and aiding them in securing highly distributed and remote workforces.

Furthermore, the courses also provide students and anyone looking to start a career in cybersecurity the opportunity to learn new skills or upskill.

Maddison says, “The current reality has forced many organisations to face rapid change and new risks as they've transitioned to remote workforce models.

“IT teams are under pressure to effectively secure their organisations, in very dynamic environments which require broad security skillsets.

“As both a technology company and a learning organisation, we are making our entire online, self-paced catalogue of advanced training courses available for free so that any IT professional can expand timely knowledge and skills on-demand as needed to effectively protect their organisations.

By learning about Fortinet technologies, such as FortiGate, FortiNAC and FortiManager, training participants will acquire an array of skills to defend any network against threats, the company states.

Recorded lab demos for these courses will be available for on-demand viewing and supplemented with regularly scheduled live sessions with Fortinet Certified Trainers. During these live sessions, trainers will be available to demo labs and conduct Q-A sessions.

According to Fortinet, there is a growing need for cybersecurity training following COVID-19. The company states that IT teams are strained with ensuring everyone in their organisation is securely set up to remotely access critical resources and applications on the corporate network.

In addition, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the increase in remote access of sensitive information and data by searching for security gaps and shifting attack strategies to target teleworker environments, Fortinet states.

According to a recent study from ISC2, nearly two-thirds of companies lacked the skilled staff they needed to maintain effective security operations.

With the expanding attack surface that a distributed workforce at scale has introduced, IT teams need broad security skillsets more than ever, to protect their organisations, according to Fortinet.

With more than 300,000 NSE certifications issued, Fortinet established the NSE Institute in 2015, comprised of the NSE training and certification program, the Fortinet Network Security Academy, and the Fortinet Veterans program.

As part of the program's free training catalogue, Fortinet provides foundational cyber awareness courses for anyone through levels NSE 1 and NSE 2.

In addition, the FortiGate Essentials training was recently added as an additional course for anyone interested in learning how to use firewall policies, user authentication, routing and SSL VPN.