My company uses the solution as an Edge firewall and East-West firewall.
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security
Check Point Software TechnologiesExternal reviews
234 reviews
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Thank you Check Point for inviting me to provide my insights as Security Analyst.
What do you like best about the product?
As Cloud infrastructure security analyst, we have been encountering to multiple network security compliances related issues. So thank you to Check Point CloudGuard to come with excellent and exceptional Cloud security tools. As far as my short experience using this Check Point CloudGuard Network Security tool has been amazing. Following few positive impact or features or things that benifited us:
1. It's seamless integration capabilities with our existing cloud infrastructure.
2. It's ability and capabilities on indentify and threat analysis of networks.
Monitoring and preventing vulnerability threats risk for networks.
Etc.
1. It's seamless integration capabilities with our existing cloud infrastructure.
2. It's ability and capabilities on indentify and threat analysis of networks.
Monitoring and preventing vulnerability threats risk for networks.
Etc.
What do you dislike about the product?
Hard to list any or think of any dislikes or downside. Always recommended for cloud infrastructure security.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
NSPM, Cloud networks protections
Acting as firewall.
Acting as firewall.
Guide to network log monitoring
What do you like best about the product?
I like the active threat monitoring engine to detect malicious traffics in our application. We can use the graph UI to view the logs on radar visibility and the intelligence engine will support custom ruleset to identify and detect organization usecases itself.
What do you dislike about the product?
The module will supports only on network and account activity logs.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It will help us to reduce anomaly traffics on our application.
Network security Work very efficiently
What do you like best about the product?
First advantage has to be that it supports multiple cloud vendors meaning that we can monitor multiple cloud accounts with one subscription.
IT provides a clean view of the network traffic
It is very capable of isolating the malicious traffic from the regular traffic
It monitors all the traffic to and from the containers including on Prem to cloud environment and vice versa also the connection between the containers
The UI is very clean and easy to understand
Implementation is quite fast
IT provides a clean view of the network traffic
It is very capable of isolating the malicious traffic from the regular traffic
It monitors all the traffic to and from the containers including on Prem to cloud environment and vice versa also the connection between the containers
The UI is very clean and easy to understand
Implementation is quite fast
What do you dislike about the product?
There are not many downsides to the network security module but the logs supported are limited they only support cloud trial logs and vpc logs
We cannot get end to end traffic view which if present can be more helpful at times
We cannot get end to end traffic view which if present can be more helpful at times
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
As said earlier the biggest problem we had with other solutions is that they only support native services where as cloud gaurd supports almost all the cloud service providers
Works as an Edge firewall and East-West firewall but improvement is needed in the consolidated UI
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The tool's most valuable feature is its management console.
What needs improvement?
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security needs to improve the management of the actual firewalls. Improvement is also needed for the consolidated UI of different security aspects.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the product for a year and a half. My company has been using it for eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We recently had some issues with stability, so it's hit or miss. It seems to have more minor bugs than other platforms, but overall stability is the same.
How are customer service and support?
The speed of the support's response varies. Sometimes, you can get a good engineer who can give you the right answers.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto, and SonicWall. The worst ones on the list are Cisco, Fortinet, and SonicWall. Palo Alto is better in some areas. Check PointCloudGuard Network Security is top in terms of actual security. But in terms of managing the whole platform, I would put it below Palo Alto.
How was the initial setup?
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security's deployment is easy and takes two hours to complete.
What about the implementation team?
I did the solution's deployment myself. However, I connected with the consultants whenever needed.
What was our ROI?
We've been secure and haven't had any security breaches.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The tool's pricing is been higher than other solutions, but it seems like it's turning downwards.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the overall product a seven out of ten.
go to solution for multi platform cloud users
What do you like best about the product?
the first important advantage is that you can link multiple cloud accounts from multiple providers and works absolutely fine detecting the maliciuos traffic from open internet to VPCs and vice versa, it can also inspect the traffic between the VPCs from on prem to the cloud services basically it monitors all the traffic to ensure high security
it is easy to use and implement
UI is very clean and understandable
supports custom rulesets
traffic explorer comes handy to provide easy understanding on the network traffic
customer support is satisfactory
it is easy to use and implement
UI is very clean and understandable
supports custom rulesets
traffic explorer comes handy to provide easy understanding on the network traffic
customer support is satisfactory
What do you dislike about the product?
only VPC and Cloud trails can be processed
despitee the traffic graph being a great feature it lacks the clear end to end details
despitee the traffic graph being a great feature it lacks the clear end to end details
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
since we are using multiple cloud accounts to manage the applications it is hard to keep track of them in a single dashboard and cloudgaurd is solving this problem for us with its top notch expertise
an amazing network security tool for cross platform environments
What do you like best about the product?
first and most impoertant advantage of cloud gaurd network security is that it is a cross platform tool and can greatly help us to keep a track of the security standards by filtering the malicious traffic
it comes with a very clean and neat user Interface.
the threat engine works so good.
it comes with sufficient built in filters to search for specific kind of traffic
traffic explorer helps in easier understanding of the network .
custom notification can be set
easy to integrate
easy to implement
it comes with a very clean and neat user Interface.
the threat engine works so good.
it comes with sufficient built in filters to search for specific kind of traffic
traffic explorer helps in easier understanding of the network .
custom notification can be set
easy to integrate
easy to implement
What do you dislike about the product?
one can only get cloud trail and VPC logs.
using terraform to manage security policies can be tricky at times and might need to be reviewed to ensure objecte are created as per the expectation, these are not logged to ensure terraform state and the checkpoint databases are in sync with eachother.
using terraform to manage security policies can be tricky at times and might need to be reviewed to ensure objecte are created as per the expectation, these are not logged to ensure terraform state and the checkpoint databases are in sync with eachother.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
unlike native services specific to provider cloudgaurd provides cross platform support meaning that i can still get overall security of the cloud environments across the various proiders from a single dashboard and CloudGuard Network Security provides inspection throughout many parts of the cloud network.
Inspection of traffic from the internet to a VPC and from VPC to the internet .
inspects the traffic between VPCs
Inspeciton between VPCs and on-prem
IPS fuctionalities
Detailed traffic logging
identity based access
Inspection of traffic from the internet to a VPC and from VPC to the internet .
inspects the traffic between VPCs
Inspeciton between VPCs and on-prem
IPS fuctionalities
Detailed traffic logging
identity based access
Advanced Threat Intelligence Engine feature
What do you like best about the product?
It has a advanced features of Threat Intelligence engine which can detect and prevent the malicious and anomaly IP address.
It has having the customized intelligence rulesets to detect our organization use cases.
It has having the customized intelligence rulesets to detect our organization use cases.
What do you dislike about the product?
The custom policy is not supported on Threat intelligence engine.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It helps us to cover the complete Threat Intell monitoring on our applications.
Advanced Intelligence Module for Cloud
What do you like best about the product?
It provides more features to secure and monitor our application networks, like VPV logs monitoring, User Account Activity monitoring, Pod to Pod communication on kubernetes clusters,etc. I like the feature of Graphical presentation of Captured logs.
What do you dislike about the product?
This features only supported on VPC & Account Activity logs.
The Graphical presentation will be supported on limited number of traffics only.
The Graphical presentation will be supported on limited number of traffics only.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The network security solution help us to continuously monitor our application networks and prevent any anomaly behaviour happens on our networks.
Thread Intelligence for Cloud Network logs
What do you like best about the product?
It having the anomaly Threat Intelligence Engine to detect our network inbound and outbound traffics effectively.
The engine having some predefined rulesets to address the runtime protection of our cloud environments.
It has supported the cluster pod to pod network communication as well.
The engine having some predefined rulesets to address the runtime protection of our cloud environments.
It has supported the cluster pod to pod network communication as well.
What do you dislike about the product?
The module will be supported on Network VPC and user activity logs.
The engine will not supported to run the specific rulesets to assess.
The engine will not supported to run the specific rulesets to assess.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
With the help of CloudGuard Network Security we continuously monitoring network and user activity logs on our cloud environments.
We have configured custom usecases to find malicious activity.
We have configured custom usecases to find malicious activity.
Highly reliable, great visibility, and centralized management
What is our primary use case?
Basically, we are using Check Point CloudGuard firewalls everywhere. We are using them at the perimeter and internally.
By implementing this solution, we wanted to protect our perimeter. We are using Check Point along with other solutions to protect our perimeter. We also have many application-level use cases that can be solved with Check Point.
How has it helped my organization?
Most of the things that we have are on the cloud. Its main benefit is reliability. We have tested so many firewalls on the cloud, but when it comes to reliability, other firewalls fail miserably. Check Point is very good. It is a very reliable solution. With other vendors, when you move something to the cloud, the features that they are offering might only work partially. We never faced any such issue with Check Point. They offer features that will work completely. Apart from that, they have solutions for almost every cloud use case. That is another thing we love.
CloudGuard Network Security provides unified security management across hybrid-clouds as well as on-prem. They have a centralized management server. There is a process called CME. If you have multiple clouds, such as AWS, GCP, and Oracle, and you are deploying CloudGuard across all the clouds, you have single management to take care of everything. This is why they provided a unified management solution. CME takes care of scaling and integration. It has a zero-touch approach. It takes care of everything. You just need to deploy it, and the connectivity should be there. It then takes care of everything. It drastically reduces the deployment time and administration overhead.
When any incident happened, it was able to tell us the particular packet associated with that. Based on its internal intelligence, it identifies everything. We were not even aware that there was an attack like that, but it gave us complete clarity about what happened and what was the attack journey. Visibility-wise, it has been very good.
It makes us confident in our security. We have proper visibility into the network. We can see exactly what is happening. We get this level of clarity. Especially when we offload the SSL capability on the firewall, we have unparalleled visibility on even the SSL traffic.
What is most valuable?
The number of options it gives for deployment or security is valuable. When it comes to security, it has a feature that is super awesome for zero-day-based attacks. Their IPS is also very capable. We tested other firewalls, and we understood that it is the best one in the market.
When it comes to the firewall capabilities, the level of information that it offers for any security incident is very good. It gives a very good clarity about what happened and at what time. It is very good.
There is centralization. You can manage everything in a single pane, and you have support for all the software. If it is a Kubernetes, you have a solution for it. If it is IOT, you can cover that. You have gateways as well for network security.
What needs improvement?
The main issue that I have noticed is that for deployment, it still requires a dedicated management server, and the gateway is completely different. That sometimes can cause issues. If it loses communication with the management server and you want to push any sort of critical policy, that would be affected. Apart from that, I do not see any issues. Everything else is going well.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been working with Check Point firewalls for more than ten years. We are currently using Check Point CloudGuard firewalls.
Check Point also has NGFW firewalls. They are hardware-based firewalls. All the features are identical. The only difference is that one is on a virtual platform, and the other one is on a physical platform.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We are only using auto-scaling firewalls. The good thing is that it scales well. Within seven to ten minutes, it gets integrated with the management server. If there is a failure, the firewall will be ready within ten minutes.
We have a team of around seven people who take care of the network security part. Our environment can go up to 3,000. If you combine the server users and the end users, there are more than 10,000 users.
How are customer service and support?
We work closely with Check Point support when there is any issue or limitation. When we face any issues related to processing, scale-out, or delay, we definitely connect with the Check Point support. They usually provide the solution quickly.
I would rate their support an eight out of ten. The reason why I am not giving them a ten is that we are connected through a third party. We cannot directly engage with Check Point. We usually contact this third party, and they engage Check Point support. We have a technical person assigned directly, which is a good thing, but this is how we initiate the process.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
We are mostly relying on TerraForm. For us, the deployment is very straightforward. When you deploy, it will automatically integrate with its management server, so you do not need to put in any effort. The only thing is that you should have the connectivity between the gateway and the management server. Once you deploy, it automatically gets added to the management. The policy push is automatic. That is very good. So, when it comes to deployment, after pushing the code, you do not need to do anything. Everything will come online. That is the best part.
We do have a couple of gateways in management, but I do not take care of that part. I am mostly on the cloud side.
It takes five to ten minutes for initialization and then there is the management part. At the maximum, it will go up to 30 minutes. I usually see everything happening within 15 to 20 minutes and not more than that, but if there is any connectivity issue or any other error, then the duration will get affected. If it is straightforward, it will take a maximum of 30 minutes and not more than that. Because the integration is automatic, I do not need to onboard the gateway to the management server. There is a functionality called CME that takes care of the entire thing.
In terms of maintenance, it does not require any maintenance. The only catch here is that because it is a cloud version, when it comes to upgrades, you cannot upgrade the existing versions to newer versions. We simply deploy the new one. It is not a complicated task. This is the only thing when it comes to maintenance.
What about the implementation team?
I was the main person who took care of the deployment engineering part.
What was our ROI?
I do not have visibility on the ROI, but we are completely satisfied with the performance. We will continue with Check Point in the future. We have been renewing their licenses without thinking about any other firewalls. I consider it as a good investment, but this aspect is managed by a different team.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We have an enterprise licensing team that works closely with Check Point. I know that we have an enterprise agreement with Check Point. That gives us some benefits, but I do not have more information about that.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We tried the Azure Firewall. It was good, but zero-day, URL filtering, and NAC capabilities were not there. It was a native firewall, but it was not able to fulfill our use cases. The main competition was against Palo Alto. When we did the comparison, we found Check Point to be more reliable. With the Palo Alto firewall, we had issues with autoscaling. It was not working as expected. These were the two that we tested. Being a bank, we cannot test everything. There was a discussion with Cisco as well, but we did not go with Cisco.
The advantage that Palo Alto has over Check Point is the GUI. They do not require a dedicated management appliance to be deployed to access the firewall capability. They do have that platform, but the individual gateway can be also accessed via a dedicated GUI. With Check Point, you have to have the software called SmartConsole. It is very good, but a company like ours has too many gateways. When you have so many gateways onboarded to the management, it will be slightly slow, but it is not a show-stopper. The GUI is good, but you require the client applications to be installed on your laptop. From the GUI itself, you would not be able to access them. That is one advantage of Palo Alto. You can straightaway access them through the GUI. The software that you need to install for Check Point is a huge one, so the performance depends on the machine. If you have many gateways associated, it can be a bit slow at times.
Check Point is a number one vendor based on the NSS labs and other regulators. In terms of performance and security, Check Point is always number one. Irrespective of how many firewall vendors are there, Check Point will always be number one. Check Point's capability to identify an incident is also very good. Its performance is also good. We were worried that if we moved to the cloud, unlike on-prem, we would not have any dedicated hardware to accelerate something. However, when we migrated to CloudGuard, we did not face any issues.
What other advice do I have?
When it comes to the cloud, I would definitely recommend the solution. One main thing is reliability. I appreciate Check Point for that. For an organization like ours, security is the main thing. Check Point has been able to protect us from various attacks. Autoscaling and other things are also working perfectly. We were able to achieve all of our use cases with the Check Point CloudGuard firewall. I do recommend this solution.
For zero-day attacks, I know there is technically no single solution, but our observation is that for most of the sophisticated attacks, if it is not already there, Check Point will have a solution within a day. When it comes to DDoS and bot-level attacks, Check Point has a sophisticated approach to prevent them in most cases.
Overall, I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
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