Good support, minimizes threats, and offers complete endpoint security
What is our primary use case?
One of the recent use cases for this solution has been related to a power company, which was facing issues but was able to get its infrastructure secured and get back its business continuity and growth. In addition, its management was able to get back its confidence with solutions or services provided by Check Point.
The client was able to quantify its security elements. As a result, a strong defensive framework was developed. Deployment of Check Point's solution resulted in the evasion of any existing and potential threats.
How has it helped my organization?
Check Point is not just a firewall. They deliver everything including IPS, application control, threat emulation and extraction, identity awareness, and more. In line with the quantum security gateways, other elements and services as provided by Check Point have also proven to be very helpful and reliable in keeping the company environment secured. The organization has also gone a great mile to tag itself as a proactive threat elimination expert in the industry viz a viz its competitors.
What is most valuable?
Harmony Endpoint is one of the great solutions by Check Point; it ensures compliance with policies and minimizes the risk of threats entering through endpoints.
It's a great complete endpoint security solution that prevents the most imminent threats to the endpoint such as ransomware, phishing, or malware.
It has proved to be very successful in identifying ransomware behaviors such as file encryption or attempts to compromise operating system backups and safely restore ransomware-encrypted files automatically.
What needs improvement?
While the console and administration work well, they have to work on performance since it consumes a lot of CPU and memory. There is also latency in the administrative panel when entering. There has been a problem with updating licenses as well. There is ground-level feedback based on interaction with the relevant stakeholders that states implementing it would make a major difference in the overall experience.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has not caused major deviations and the historical experience has been quite good. The stability and reliability of the solution is pretty much appreciated
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The overall impression of the scalability is good and impressive.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support has been pretty good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have been involved with a lot of other partners in parallel, depending on the requirements of the customers.
How was the initial setup?
I am not directly involved in the setup and deployment of the product.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was handled by an in-house team.
What was our ROI?
I've witnessed an ROI of 25% to 30%.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Users should actively evaluate the existing options available in the market and finalize the one that matches their requirements, budget, and priorities. Check Point can definitely be considered based on my personal experience.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
The choice to evaluate would not be my personal decision but the requirement raised by the customers.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Enterprise level scalability and meeting all the PCI guidelines regulating financial market players
What is our primary use case?
Our use cases are protection infrastructure in a financial corporate environment.
How has it helped my organization?
Check Point firewalls meet all the PCI guidelines that regulate players in the financial market.
What is most valuable?
The support is pretty incredible.
What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement in reliability.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for ten years. I worked from version 840 to 8120.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability a six out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable. I would rate the scalability for this solution a ten out of ten.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I initially took Cisco training for routers, switches, and firewalls. I did actually work up the Cisco firewalls long enough to convert them to Check Point.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was complex. But that was really the fault of Check Point just because we deployed it into the Google Cloud environment, and their environment is a little different.
We have security management deployed on-premises and on the cloud.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is about par for the enterprise-class firewalls.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Palo Alto and Cisco. And the reason for going with this solution was the price. So, with Cisco, it was priced. We actually checked the overall price of the cost of ownership. When you talk about support costs and everything else, was cheaper than Cisco. And with Palo Alto, also had reliability issues that could not be overcome by their support.
What other advice do I have?
I definitely recommend it, but unless you're fully trained and experienced on Check Point, you should get the better support program.
Check Point has support rep programs that go all the way up to putting one of their own people in your business to help you. Then, they have support programs. If you're an expert, you just need to be able to download updated files and stuff. They have support programs like that, too. The worst possible situation is if somebody isn't really skilled with the thing and they cheap out on the support program, and they'll just flounder.
Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Enhanced security with centralized control for threat prevention
What is our primary use case?
Check Point plays a crucial role in enhancing our security firewall solution in our company. It has brought significant improvements, including features like spam and anti-spam measures, intrusion prevention (IPS), and advanced filtering.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature for me is the firewall. Whether it's five stars or even higher, the analytics reports it provides are truly impressive. They offer valuable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that shed light on various situations and different logs.
What needs improvement?
They could offer educational courses to help individuals improve their knowledge and skills.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with it for two years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It provides good stability features. I would rate it eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate its scalability capabilities nine out of ten.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In my previous company, I had experience using Fortinet and Palo Alto.
How was the initial setup?
I find that the setup process is somewhat distinct from other solutions. I believe that having some guidance from the website or tutorials would make it easier.
What other advice do I have?
I strongly recommend this solution because it's a highly effective and reliable choice. I would rate it nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
An expensive solution with easy life cycle management
What is our primary use case?
We use Check Point Security Management for firewall management.
What is most valuable?
The solution is easy to use and comes with few vulnerabilities. You don't have to worry about release upgrades. Life cycle management is very easy.
What needs improvement?
Check Point Security Management lacks some of the competitor features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Check Point Security Management is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have around 4,500 users for the product.
How are customer service and support?
Check Point Security Management doesn't have good support since it is difficult to get the right person.
How would you rate customer service and support?
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is expensive.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Good centralization, rules management, and automation
What is our primary use case?
One of our company's priorities was to have centralization of all the equipment in a single firewall. With the tools provided by Check Point, we were able to achieve it, and in this way we were able to centralize all the records.
With this implementation, we were able to make more centralized management and of all the rules. It was very comfortable to be able to configure them and manage them and thus be able to make the whole implementation more orderly and be able to carry out our organization along a good path of security administration
How has it helped my organization?
Check Point Security Management came to help us a lot. With this implementation, we were able to generate a firewall rule centralization and management. This helped our IT department to have an order in security and thus be able to centralize it.
By having this implemented, our facilities' security has improved a lot since both employees and external users are audited before entering the network through Check Point Security Management and the rules that make these security filters possible.
What is most valuable?
Check Point Security Management has a great feature that allows you to automate the request of the automated server. This helps us reduce the administrative effort of the IT department and thus give priority to other things like the security of the company or with the characteristic It provides us with centralization, which helps us with management.
The SmartConsole has provided us with excellent help with the application. It communicates with the administrator and allows us to create policies and also look at the traffic log.
What needs improvement?
The web administration tool that allows administration in the browser must be developed even more. When one tries to enter the panel, the loading delays us.
They can also implement version updating.
Another feature that could be improved is the export of configurations to .CSV. This would further simplify the management and compliance with rules.
For how long have I used the solution?
This solution has been used for approximately two year in the company.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has excellent stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is quite a scalable product.
How are customer service and support?
The support experience has not been very good. We have had some problems with cases and meetings coordination.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
There was no type of tool that would supply these qualities in the company previously.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is easy. It is plug-and-play. However, the configuration must be done carefully.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was handled with the help of an engineer who had prior knowledge of the product.
What was our ROI?
The ROI is there. Making an investment in security is always a very good idea.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Check Point offers a good price for its products. It is worth making the investment since this can prevent vulnerabilities.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Check Point was always our first option in terms of product choice.
What other advice do I have?
It is an excellent tool to implement in the organization.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
complete compliance and security suite for check point environment
What do you like best about the product?
It's straightforward to use. Price is low compared to other solutions. Many times it is bundled with the initial purchase. There's no need for additional Hardware and Solution required to configure the compliance. You can get the output of the compliance results very quickly. Similar vendors do not have this solution. They are trying the cover the gap throughout the reporting modules or dashboards. Solutions is interactive. This interaction and real time features help the firewall admins to quickly see the operational and logical mistakes while maintaning the daily security activities. Findings screen is interactive where you can jump on the item and solve the issue within a click.
What do you dislike about the product?
It's unique to Checkpoint. Well, Checkpoint had acquired the easy2comply solution in 2011. Then it' had customized this solution for Checkpoint firewalls. However, while it's made the acquisition, some of easy2comply features have been dropped. Why I'm mentioning this because we had an old Dynasec customer. Therefore we had used the solution for overall compliance. Current Checkpoint compliance is just for the Checkpoint firewalls. You can't use the solution for other security components. Some of the problems related to the compliance solutions is the roadmap and workflow entegrations. Product does not have the user defined networking security where you define the critical zones and traffic flow.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
As for the financial companies, you should be align with the regulations. Checkpoint compliance is ensuring us to be compliant with these regulations. Throughout the audit, auditors analyze the compliance module outputs. Therefore this product is assisting the auditors as well as firewall administrators. As there are already defined regulations checks on the solutions, I do not need to know or define every mapped item.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
It's not well suited for a hybrid environment where you have several different vendors. You need to enable the solution to start monitoring. Default installations do not have the solution to be enabled and started. Enable the reporting to get the results. Otherwise, you need to log in open the compliance view, and see the results. It's not a product like let it run and see the results. It's a dynamic solution and needs constant attention to achieve the best results.
Checkpoint NGFW
What do you like best about the product?
It has a centralized dashboard to manage all checkpoint security gateway.
What do you dislike about the product?
Dedicated throughput is not available for each module.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
To host services that can access via the cloud directly.
Compliance Blade is very powerful and keep system compliant
What do you like best about the product?
It checks windows update are done on machine , check Anti-virus and anti-malware signatures up to date.it also check which application we can use which makes the system compliant.
What do you dislike about the product?
Policy creation is little tough , need some experience to define policies
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Earlier users use unwanted applications which make system out of compliance, but after using Check Point compliance blade we can control use of application and other things.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Use it to make company users laptops compliant.
Compliance checks for firewall configuration
What do you like best about the product?
Just right after the software blade activation you may get the first results - whether the basic setting of you firewall comply with the vendor (Check Point) recommended configuration. Additional compliance checks may be activated easily via the SmartConsole, and the number of standards to check the configuration on is really huge.
What do you dislike about the product?
I have only the positive experience working with the Check Point Security Compliance, nothing to complain about.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The Check Point NGFW are the core security solution we use to protect our DataCenter located in Asia. The Check Point Security Compliance software blade is activated on the OpenServer Security Management Server (running on a virtual machine), and serves a good job continuously checking the firewalls configuration on the presence of configuration mistakes and on the compliance to the security standard - PCI DSS, which is important for us - we deal with the client data, and such regulations are mandatory. This blade saves hundreds of hours of the working time of our engineering team ever year, and that is a great benefit for the company - to perform this task every quarter manually would be insane.
Automatic compliance for you NGFW congiguration
What do you like best about the product?
The license for one year subscription of the compliance blade is provided with every Check Point Management Server - that's more than enough to complete the configuration of firewall and make sure that the configuration is compliant with the regulatory standards right after that.
The default repors that are available just after blade activation are sufficient enough, but you could always cusomize them as needed, e.g. by including you company name and logo - after that the repors may be used like official documentation.
It's also possible to enable automatic reporting of the compliance violation to the administrators of the system - the remidiation steps are advaised as well.
What do you dislike about the product?
No downsides have been observer during the usage of the Complinace blade.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Since we provide public telecomunication services accross the globe, our infrasturcture must comply with different regularory standards, which vary per country. The Check Point Compliance blade provides a easy way to check whether the configuration of the firewalls under you management are compliant and thus secure. We periodically check for compliance on GDPR, HIPAA and ISO 27001, and quite happy that we don't need a separate solution for every standard.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Make a list of the standards you have to comply with and check it on Check Point portal - all the specs of the blade are available. I think at least 95% of the points would be covered even for big company stretched accross the worlds.
