Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration Reviews

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration allows me to monitor the activities in the environment. I can check if there are any phishing or spam emails with its efficient reporting features.

It's been an awesome experience working with Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration. I can count the number of endpoints, emails, and collaborations being used in the environment. It gives me insights into the number of tools required to block malicious websites. 

We have to invest a lot of effort in filtering the spam emails. They have not updated any category for phishing or spam emails. There could be more automation features included for it. It will help me with feedback for unusual activities.

We have been using Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration for four months. At present, we are using the latest version.

The platform is stable. I rate its stability a nine out of ten.

The platform is scalable. I rate its scalability an eight and a half.

The product’s initial setup process is more straightforward as I am Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration partner and have the necessary training. It takes less than ten minutes to complete.

The product’s price is very high. I rate its pricing a ten out of ten.

I recommend Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration to others and rate it an eight out of ten.

All of Harmony Email & Collaboration's features are valuable.

Harmony Email & Collaboration could be improved by making the whitelist available on the website and application level.

I've been using Harmony Email & Collaboration for a year.

Harmony Email & Collaboration is stable.

Check Point's technical support is very good.

Positive

We previously used McAfee Endpoint.

I would recommend Harmony Email & Collaboration to other users and rate it eight out of ten.

About one year ago, we decided to switch from the on-premises located email server, based on Zimbra software, to the cloud-based Office 365 provided by Microsoft. We did this because of the increased load that followed after the company's growth.

To provide the security coverage to the new email service, we chose the Check Point CloudGuard SaaS solution. Now it serves as the main protection mechanism, with about 500 users and up to 10,000 emails per day, and there are no problems with the scalability for future growth.

The Check Point CloudGuard SaaS solution is used mostly to prevent malware and zero-day threats. It protects the Microsoft Office 365 cloud email service users of our company against attacks. It is also capable of stopping the sophisticated phishing attacks on the Office 365 accounts and block the possible account hijacks.

It would be really hard to achieve such a level of protection with the on-premises email server without using some email-server specific software, but with CloudGuard SaaS it was easy to integrate the security into the Microsoft email services.

As with most of the other Check Point products, the CloudGuard SaaS has the advanced visibility of the events and alerts. In general, the monitoring and alerting is just great, and the default dashboards provided are used by our support team as part of the SoC solution.

In addition, the CloudGuard SaaS is capable of preventing data leakage, thus may serve as the basic DLP system for the cloud email system. We rely on this functionality and block the emails that contain the card numbers patterns as part of the compliance regulations.

From time to time, the system's administrators notice the increase in the false-positive alerts being reported by CloudGuard SaaS. The increase usually lasts for several days, with the longest we observed being about a week. During these periods, some number of the "clean" emails are blocked and not delivered to the end-users. I hope the Check Point team would work on improving the detection algorithm and the amount of the false-positive alerts would be more predictable, stable on the minimal level. 

We onboarded the Check Point CloudGuard SaaS about a year ago, after switching from our on-prem email system to the cloud-based Office 365.

The solution is mature and stable.

The solution is scalable. We now have about 500 active users and see no issues with the performance. 

We haven't had any support cases opened for Check Point CloudGuard SaaS so far.

We didn't have previous experience with any SaaS security solution before switching.

The setup was straightforward, but quite long due to the need for API integration configuration. In total, it took us about a month to deploy.

The solution was implemented by the in-house team of security engineers and email system administrators, without the prior experience of the CloudGuard SaaS.

We didn't evaluate the other products, since we have a strong expertise among the team with the other Check Point solution, and were satisfied with them.

We had the need for a solution that would allow us to integrate search and analysis into the different mail clouds. This allowed us to focus on features that were very important, such as avoiding the loss of data and content. Thanks to the search, analysis, and integration functionalities, we could integrate easily with the cloud that we have. The product gave us a greater ability to search and explore issues while minimally invasive to end users.

Checkpoint Harmony Email and Collaboration is one of the cloud solutions for email that has given us the most added value. It has allowed for the education of users while still keeping them protected in a non-invasive way. When configuring this solution, we have not needed to come and affect management in terms of the day-to-day tasks handled by the users. It is a solution that is directly configured at the service level, not at the user level, so it's quick to install and configure, allowing connectors through APIs that can block malicious emails before they reach the inbox. It is acting as a full replacement for data loss analysis and management issues.

Harmony email has many interesting features. Its total protection has been the greatest aspect since it completely protects all the mail from the cloud. It gives 100% protection and is something that is a failsafe. There are no errors. Having an app-based solution that detects everything that is lost helps ensure reliability. It is quite complete, and it integrates with emulation solutions. If an email is ever compromised, you can detect the issue, find out what happened, and protect the company. It is a very complete solution.

The solution really has many outstanding features. It is quite easy to install and configure and is very complete. 

We could analyze services such as SharePoint and have more seamless integration. They could help us be integrating features with solutions from third parties. That would be very helpful. Right now, we do not have complete analysis when it comes to analyzing and detecting all the data that is saved. Having a product that could sweep repositories would be great.

I've used the solution for about a year and two months.

This solution is not for our organization. We are system integrators. We have some projects for our clients, and one of our clients was looking for CloudGuard because they use Check Point Firewall for their on-premise. There are a number of machines and critical servers that they have hosted in AWS; 15 to 20 servers and application servers are hosted in the AWS platform. For those, we have applied Check Point IaaS Firewall for their security and firewall protection.

We are using the stable version that was published in March.

I am confident with the block rate. We host our solution in AWS cloud. If someone tries to hit our applications, they could be a legitimate user or a hacker. So, we have found a number of blocked attempts from the external end.

In terms of technical features, this is the best solution that I have worked with so far. For example:

• URL Filtering
• Application control 
• Threat Prevention
• Sandboxing

We have found threat prevention using sandboxing from Check Point, after buying the Threat Prevention license, helped with the malware prevention rate and reduced zero-day attacks.

For Threat Prevention, I was impressed with this feature and the solution's effectiveness. It has been very good. 

Getting reports and finding threats in the console is easy.

The false positive rate is one of the problems that we had faced with Check Point's information. For example, we have a number of false positives in both CloudGuard SaaS and CloudGuard IaaS, which has been quite disappointing when we find them. However, the moment when we whitelist or blacklist false positive things, the solution gives us more efficient security than other solutions. When I teach Check Point IaaS, I feel like it is putting devices into learning mode and feeding more stuff to the solution, which gives me more efficient security.

We download the SmartConsole from AWS, installing it on our computers, then managing it from our end only on local machines. I need to download agents for every machine from the Check Point instance. To connect with the SmartConsole, then I need to give public access to Check Point's machine. At that moment, there is no configuration in my machine so I need to give some public access to our machine. Giving public access without configuring anything is the first defect or drawback. It takes a few times for every engineer to download the agent and configure the policy, and that takes five to 10 minutes. Within those five to 10 minutes, it is insecure.

The integration with the Check Point console needs improvement, e.g., accessing the SmartConsole is difficult. 

I have been working with Check Point for six to seven months.

I haven't tested the scalability.

The worst thing that I have faced with Check Point has been their support.

I have sat with all the following support teams:

• Cisco
• Fortinet
• SonicWall
• Sophos
• Check Point. 

Other vendor support teams go after fixing the issue the moment that they join the remote session. The problem that I have faced with Check Point support is that they share the case number with me, then it takes at least two days for them to join a remote session with us, even though we have asked for this timeframe to change. Even though we have already explained the problems that we are facing or the business pain points in our network on the call or email, we have to repeat the problem statements again in the console. It can take four or five days to resolve the issue from the moment they understand the problem. This includes the time to teach their R&D or internal team whatever the issue is. I have faced timeframes as long as seven to 10 days for fixing some issues. 

Since this is a cloud-based solution for IaaS and SaaS, I need a different support team for a number of things. So, if they increased or developed their support team, then it would be better for their customers.

Compared to other solutions, like Fortinet, this solution's initial setup is complex. Policy configuration and integrations make Check Point's setup difficult. The setup for on-premise and cloud are the same.

Whenever we need to download the agent from Check Point's console and integrate the SmartConsole with the Check Point solution, the configuration is time consuming and a difficult task for an engineer. Getting the console integrated with the firewall can be difficult, affecting engineers during implementation.

When it comes to Threat Prevention pricing and licensing, it has felt a little costly. For some clients, who are looking at security as their primary concern, then it's better for them. 

I'm in this business as a system integrator, so I need to suggest Check Point to some customers who are comparing products. I sell Check Point, Fortinet, and Palo Alto solutions. In terms of licensing, this solution is quite competitive but very costly. For someone looking at security as a primary concern, they should only invest in Check Point. For a customer who is looking at security combined with pricing, Check Point might not be the core solution for them. In today's market, customers are looking for effective security with efficient pricing, and Check Point is not suitable for these types of customers.

I would like them to improve the pricing.

With respect to Check Point's security features, my clients and I feel every feature given by Check Point has been very helpful for us. We have tried FortiGate, Sophos, and Cisco in some places. Even though Check Point wasn't a market leader, like Cisco and FortiGate, they have the most efficient security. Therefore, we feel it is worth the money for their security features.

The cloud security provided by CloudGuard IaaS is simple compared with the security provided by public cloud providers. If I go for Check Point, then I'm getting the complete features of what a firewall does. When I go for AWS, then by default, I don't get anything other than the ACLs.

The security features have been good. The pricing and licensing strategies have been average, but Check Point's support has been the worst.

I would rate the solution as a seven out of 10.

The solution helps to block spam emails. With this solution, the users mostly see what the solution posts on its dashboard. This helps users analyze the spam and data.

The solution can be easily integrated and takes a short time to be implemented.  In addition, it provides a feature that prevents information from leaking from the company and blocks potential threats.

The left-hand feature can be made more granular for the implementation of the policy. Our clients want two solutions integrated into one, so this feature would help.

I have been using Check Point Harmony for two years. 

It is a stable solution. 

It is a scalable solution. 

The technical support team is good. 

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment requires two people and can be done in less than a week. I would rate the initial setup a nine out of ten.

The pricing is competitive. 

The solution is very intuitive, the deployment time is short, it has detailed documentation, and has a good support team. I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten. 

We do security automation for our customers.

The automated rule cleanups and automated policy installs have improved my customers' organizations.

The API is its most valuable feature. On the API side, relative to the rest of the market, Check Point is decades ahead of its competitors. The APIs on some of their competitors are so archaic, they are not even usable.

I would like to see them do some work on the database back-end and how it is supported, in terms of performance, cleanup, and scalability. In particular, I would love it if they would do some work on the Postgres definition on the back-end.

I have learned enough to make the product stable. However, the stability has some challenges.

It is scalable. It can be very scalable in certain scenarios, but you have to make sure it is architected correctly.

Their technical support is very good, but I am fairly technical. I don't have to use them a lot. The product has been pretty good that way.

The initial setup was complex, but we were building something new for the API hosts.

I implemented it myself, and I did a great job!

I was the decision process. I wrote the code for it. I only work with Check Point.

I would rate it a ten out of ten. It is the best on the market right now. It is not perfect by any means, and it has its challenges, but every product does.

I would advise someone considering this solution to stop wasting your time and get it deployed.

We use it to secure an email gateway.

People are now thinking twice before clicking on something, and if it's suspicious they don't have a chance to click because it's quarantined.

We also provide a process where someone can request an email from quarantine. There are times when legal email gets through because of the subject line or the content. We're able to check it, and also double-check with our individuals to ask if they expected an email from the sender. They can confirm the sender and it can be released. That added layer of protection is always good.

We need the phishing detection and email quarantine. Once an email is considered malicious, it stays in the quarantine where we can interrogate it. We can check out why it was quarantined and see if it should be delivered to the individual.

With the greater use of mobile phones there is more threat of email being compromised. Having the phishing detection is very valuable because we get hundreds of phishing emails per day. Having something to sift through them and alert us that they may be phishing emails, so that we can go in and further now check them, is a very valuable feature.

We still get some false positives. There are times when legitimate stuff gets flagged and it could be that somebody is expecting a very important email but they don't end up getting it. On the flip side, when we alert Check Point about stuff like this, it is corrected, so they are improving. That's a plus.

In terms of additional features, right now it shows you login activity for Office 365, a bit of a broad overview. I would like to be able to drill down further into that to see real-time login events on a map.

I've been using Check Point CloudGuard SaaS for almost two years.

It has been pretty stable. Sometimes Check Point has a cloud issue and we have had instances where that particular box might have been down, but we get alerted that it's being worked on and when it's back up we are alerted as well. Things happen but they always keep up in the loop.

We haven't needed to really scale up or scale up or down.

We have Office 365 for pretty much the whole company, which is over 1,000 users. CloudGuard has been implemented across 100 percent of our company.

For CloudGuard, specifically, their tech support is very responsive. Once we send an email to the guys we work with, they're immediately ready to set up a meeting or set up a call so that we can work through it.

We didn't have anything prior to CloudGuard. We needed something to catch phishing emails and malicious emails, malware, and to have a sandbox area so that we could check the classification, as well as quarantine and release.

The setup was pretty straightforward. We were up and running within a week.

It is my manager and I who are using and maintaining the solution on a daily basis. In terms of maintenance, we've had mis-classifications of emails where we had to reach out to Check Point and they have assisted and helped us fix any issues that we have come across.

We had assistance from Check Point. They were fairly helpful. It's a fairly new solution so we've had a few false positives. We contacted them and helped them to pinpoint some things they could go ahead and fix.

Because of its features and abilities, it has saved us from a lot of possible breaches. That's always a plus.

It's best to cover all your needs because you're going to want all your emails to be checked.

We were looking at a few other options, although I don't remember which ones.

The difference between them boiled down to money. Price-wise, Check Point was very good, it was very competitive.

Make sure you do your homework and compare all the possible vendors to ensure that you get what you really want out of a solution like this.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using CloudGuard is that even legitimate emails can look suspicious. You need to take that little extra step to check them.