Check Point NGFW Valuable Features

Ranga V - PeerSpot reviewer
United Airlines at United Airlines

VSX, URL filtering, and DLP are all excellent. VSX is the best thing we have used. We can use virtual switches and virtual routers for VLAN extensions. Another great feature is the "Active-Active" state that no other firewalls provide. I worked with other vendors as well; however, Check Point is the only one that can provide very good support on the Active-Active state. I still like the traditional way of troubleshooting using TCPDUMP and the FW monitor. Application IDs can be used, which is a significant improvement from previous versions.

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Ozan Durmus - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Information Security Specialist at AKBANK TAS

The solution offers a good GUI. It is easy to use, smart, simple, and user-friendly.

The client VPN and S2S VPN capabilities are great. Check Point's mobile access provides us with flexibility. We don't have a single point of failure regarding the VPN access points anymore.

We can use Check Point NGFW physically, virtually (with Check Point VSX), and on the cloud with CloudGuard. We have most of the features available even within these different environments.

We can apply SAM Rules (without installation needs), and Custom Intelligence Feeds.

It has good API support and provides value when you need it. 

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BF
Network Engineer II at Baptist Health

There are several useful features that we utilize that are now valuable assets in terms of protecting the network. These would include user identification (ID Collector), IPS, antibot, antivirus, application, and URL filtering as well as the standard firewall security rules. They all work together to provide layers of security to protect both inbound and outbound traffic in order to minimize loss of private data as well as to ensure our network is free of bad actors attempting to use malware or ransomware against us.

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Buyer's Guide
Check Point NGFW
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Check Point NGFW. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
767,995 professionals have used our research since 2012.
AS
Works at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

I found Check Point's software ability to provide for all the perimeter security solutions including next-generation firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, identity and access management, and URL filtering. They are all excellent. Check Point's Central configuration management, central log correlation, and management solution are a cut above the other vendors and are the best in the industry. Check Point's virtualization solutions are also very efficient and can be scaled. They are highly stable solutions (MDS/Domain Managers & MDLS).

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VinothS - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architecht at airtel

Some of the most valuable features are URL filtering, web filtering, and content filtering. Typically, customers would need to invest in cloud web security solutions for local internet breakout. However, by deploying Check Point firewalls, which include these functionalities built-in at each site, the need for separate cloud-based solutions is eliminated. This consolidation reduces costs significantly, as one product serves multiple purposes: routing, switching, and next-generation security features such as timeboxing and malware filtering.

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reviewer09751353 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at Upstream

I appreciate the Smart Console for its ease of use and clarity in managing configurations. It's user-friendly and free of software bugs. Smart Console simplifies the management of current policies and objects, making it effortless to track an object's usage or identify unused objects, thus ensuring a tidy configuration. 

Additionally, the hit count feature proves highly valuable, enabling policy prioritization based on usage frequency and facilitating verification of traffic alignment with newly created policies. Furthermore, implementing 2FA for SSL VPN users was a straightforward process, notably without the need for additional costs, unlike the FortiTokens required for our primary SSL VPN.

Additionally, the quick and seamless option to revert to a previous configuration revision is highly valuable. The logs tab serves as a helpful tool for troubleshooting. 

It's worth noting that we've experienced no CPU or memory issues, and the system is highly responsive.

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reviewer02975255 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at BDO Unibank

Besides the basic firewall feature of the Check Point NGFW, we find the IPS and anti-malware security blades to be most valuable for our current implementation.

The IPS and anti-malware solutions have successfully identified and blocked potential threats from our perimeter. 

Though we are also using threat intelligence, we see more validation of the successful use of the IPS an anti-malware. 

The successful performance of the security blades has shown the value of the investment along with the comparable success of leveraging the NGFW over a separate specialized security solution. 

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MURALI NIDAMANURI - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at VIPUN COGNITIVE SOLUTIONS PVT LTD.

It provides a comprehensive and scalable security solution. With features like nanosecurity, cloud integration, and multi-domain management, they address the diverse security needs of businesses, from small enterprises to large corporations. It excels in malware prevention, utilizing features like fan black pattern and vulnerability-driven detection, ensuring comprehensive security against evolving threats.  It boasts an Infinity architecture, offering a multitude of features tailored to enterprise needs. The integration with AWS and Google Cloud, safeguarding cloud servers and networks. The Multi-Domain Management feature enables centralized control across on-premises and cloud environments, streamlining security management.

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MK
Technical Architect and consultant at VirginAustralia

Check Point's architecture is three-fold, comprising the firewall, management server, and dashboard. The dashboard provides a comprehensive view of the network and security status, enabling identification and isolation of problematic devices, performing tasks like patch updates, and monitoring logs. It provides configured automated alerts via email or notifications on mobile devices, ensuring you're informed of any threats, even during non-business hours. Another vital function is the ability to offer VPN services. This enables end users and mobile or remote workers to securely access the network from anywhere globally.

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Bharath Kumar Gajula - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Architect at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

The tool has solid firmware with very few vulnerabilities. We don't need to upgrade it for vulnerabilities. It is rare when compared to the competitors. The product’s performance is good. My organization chose the product because it is stable and provides a very good Software Blade.

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Tempreviewercb Ba - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Specialist at CCV Deutschland GmbH

By implementing VSX (Virtual System Extension), we were able to reduce our hardware footprint, reducing both direct and indirect costs. This also enables us to quickly scale up or down to meet business needs.

We have also found that the Intrusion Prevention System implemented on Check Point Quantum Network Gateways is robust, efficient, and very easy to implement. Being able to add it later as a software feature is a real boon. The customization options enabled us to zero in on our specific use case.

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reviewer802415 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Administrator at POET

The central management and logging are frankly one of the top selling points. 

The actual management is perhaps a little confusing for a newcomer to Check Point - however, does not take very long to learn the basic ins and outs of. 

The logging capability of Check Point is excellent and very rarely have we wanted more. The logging is very fast and easy to use, and this makes finding items across all 80+ firewalls very easy. 

It is also easy to export all logs to our MSP since it is from a central point. The other built-in features are also helpful as it eliminates the need for some extra security appliances.

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RW
Enterprise Software Consultant at Crayon Group

The features which are most valuable include:

1] Uncompromising Security

2] Security at Hyperscale

3] Unified Security

4] Check Point's Quantum helps our clients in their overall cybersecurity practice

5] Protects network, data center, endpoints, and IoT

6] Ultra-scalable protection against Gen-V cyber attacks

7] Best Protection with SandBlast Threat Prevention

8] Maestro Hyper-scale Networking

9] Remote Access VPN protects your Remote Users

10] Highest level of security with Autonomous Threat Prevention

11] Modular Hardware and high-performance CPUs

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Tempreviewera A - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Developer at Holmen Iggesund

One of the strengths of Check Point Firewall lies in its granular policy management capabilities. We can define security policies based on a variety of criteria, including user identity, application, and content type. This level of granularity allows us to enforce security policies that align with our specific needs and compliance requirements.

One of the standout features of our Check Point Gateways is the user-friendly interface. Smart Console (management console) is well-designed and intuitive and provides administrators with a centralized hub for monitoring and configuring security policies. The web version isn't quite there yet, so to get the most out of it, the console needs to be installed, but it allows users to tailor it to their specific needs, and the menu structure is logical, making navigation a breeze for both novices and experienced administrators.

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reviewer98265120 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant at CDW

The compute power of the appliance is great. The Check Point appliances are considered NGFW devices and can process both the ASA and FTD requirements on a single instance, removing the requirement for an expansion SSD module and/or additional hardware.

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Anteneh Alemayehu - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, IT Infrastructure Management Department at Enat Bank S.C.

The most invaluable features we have are content filtering and application control. These features operate seamlessly, thanks to the integration of Identity Awareness. Through Identity Awareness, we established a connection with our internal LDAP server, which enables us to exercise complete control over user access. We can precisely determine who has access rights and who is granted permission, regardless of their connection point.

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nickospot - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager at a government with 501-1,000 employees

Check Point's rule management helped us simplify access control. At one point, we had more than 1,000 access control policies, and it was challenging to manage them all. We cut it down to 300 policies using Check Point's management features, and we are still working on reducing this further to achieve the best way to manage policies. Its logging and monitoring enable us to trace and investigate suspicious traffic.

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Prateek Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at Indian Institute of Management Visakhapatnam

It performs excellently, primarily focusing on on-premises infrastructure. It's a lightweight solution, requiring minimal storage, resources, and memory to operate effectively. This flexibility makes it easy to deploy on on-premises infrastructure.

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Rifma Dwika Octora - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at PT. Nusantara Compnet Integrator

The features we find valuable for our companies are:

- remote access VPN

- L4 and L7 firewall rules

- unified management platform provided by Smart-1

- management platform can be deployed on-premise or on the cloud

- full threat prevention by SandBlast

- support integration with 3rd party security vendors like Splunk, Qradar, etc

- high throughput for IDS/ IPS and NGFW only

- easy to scale up using Maestro

- built-in email security solution, endpoint protection, sandboxing, alert to administrator

View full review »
Afrizal Guntur - PeerSpot reviewer
Junior Security Engineer at PT Kereta Api Indonesia (Persero)

URL filtering and anti-malware protection at=re the most useful as those can mitigate many malicious events and make connections between users and the internet safe. It's faster with the load balancing method and supports a round-robin algorithm. This firewall in our environment has high availability or cluster system which makes our availability higher, especially for business continuation plans. Support for troubleshooting and maintenance cases is great. They are very helpful and fast at solving many problems.

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reviewer1543578 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at Johnson Controls, Inc.

We greatly appreciate the ease of configuring firewall policy ACL rules and how the seamless integration with VPN users and user groups provides the ability to granularly restrict access. The uncomplicated configuration ensures that mistakes are avoided and rules are easily audited.

Having the ability to set an expiration date for remote access VPN users simplifies the process and increases security by ensuring that stale accounts and not forgotten.

In general, we find that CheckPoint offers a great balance between ease of use and configurability.

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Stef Xen - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees

SMS server is considered very valuable, as Central management of every firewall spread all over the world is achieved by setting it up.

Remote Access VPN is used by our company for work-from-home purposes of our employees and for partners that need to access our resources.

Reporting of network interface traffic is very valuable since capacity planning for the next quarter or year takes place, and provides us with valid data.

Firewall access rules contain the negative choice.

IPS engine protects our infrastructure from malicious events.

NAT counters, ACL Counters.

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NS
Senior Solutions Architect at Maersk

The solution has a lot of valuable aspects, including:

  • IPS & IDS
  • Sandbox (Threat Emulation & Extraction)
  • Ease of management
  • Reports for analysis
  • Better technical support
  • Stateful inspection
  • Application-aware boxes
  • Threat detection capabilities
  • Hyperscaling

Data loss prevention, compliance, threat emulation, and other blades overall make this a robustly unified platform for the implementation and management of security controls.

Since it is Layer 7, we are able to get down to the application level and block certain applications from even running.

Since it has an IPS in place, we are able to see possible attacks that have been prevented by the firewall.

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JR
Systems Architect at PHARMPIX CORP

The Remote Access VPN has been crucial to us, especially during this pandemic. We had to be on lockdown for a couple of months and being able to deploy a remote workforce with Check Point VPN was a crucial part of our business continuity strategy.

The logs and reporting are very easy to use and manage. Also, the IPS and IDS are critical components to keeping our network secure. They are very easy to configure and there are multiple templates that can be used out of the box that provides maximum protection to our network.

The support offers the best services I have experienced. It's better than any other IT vendor.

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reviewer1626546 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Head at SUKARNE

What gives me the most value is undoubtedly the security that the anti-bot and anti-virus blades provide. With the automatic updates of signatures, I am always protected against new threats. The identity awareness blade helps me to have better control and organization over unauthorized access of my users onto exclusion sites such as social networks. In the DMZ it allows me to control administrators with access to highly important networks such as servers, developments, etc.

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SF
Network Administrator at University of Kelaniya

The most valuable feature is the IPsec VPN. The application and content filtering is perfect for our university. This device gives us alerts and reports on a daily and weekly basis. It gives us the opportunity to know what is going on. The Smart Dashboard and other user interfaces are very easy to use and can be handled without any significant IT skills. It allows for easy policy management.

The Check Point Capsule VPN is a great feature. It connects to our university in a few seconds.

It's easy to handle and manage. No need for significant IT skills to manage this solution.

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reviewer1531134 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Engineer at Insurance Company

The management interface is easy to operate and is a standardized way of managing different firewall modules in the same client application. Additionally, it provides up-to-date security options through different license bundles and scalability to match almost any firewall security needs as you can easily add more systems to implement several cluster firewalls, running as a load-sharing whole system or active-standby members. The log explorer is also straightforward to use, and the results are easily exportable.

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RS
Network and Security Engineer at BT - British Telecom

Check Point is a great technology. It doesn't compromise the performance of the users. The tool provides great security. It was the first firewall that provided 3-way handshake. It was the first stateful firewall in the market.

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Sachid Doshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Security Architect at Cyqurex Systems Ltd

There are several crucial advantages to using Check Point NGFW including its ease of use, as it provides a unified interface for managing multiple security functions. It offers impressive scalability to meet the demands of a large organization and can handle substantial traffic. Its simplified management, enhanced remote support capabilities, and the ability to facilitate secure VPN connectivity for numerous offices and employees are highly beneficial.

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JD
Ingeniero de Infraestructura at E-Global S.A.

Check Point's most useful feature is threat prevention and extraction. It was tough to manage seven firewalls and a perimeter solution for IPS, anti-malware, anti-bot, and sandboxing. 

Integrating everything in Check Point allows us to see all the attacks that are blocked with our perimeter countermeasures every day. Check Point's high detection rate improves our overall security posture, and we can achieve a low rate of false positives through a few adjustments to the configuration.

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NT
TitleNetwork Manager at Destinology

Check Point offers a secure VPN client. We distribute to our agents via group policy. Our agents can then connect to our network when working from home - which was a game-changer due to the recent pandemic situation. 

Check Point also offers a mobile app capsule connect which, as a system administrator, has proven very useful when a high-priority issue occurs. I am able to connect to my internal network via a phone or tablet - which has proven useful in some scenarios. 

As a system administrator my favourite part of Check Point is the smart view tracker. This alone is a must-have tool for tracking all traffic traversing the Check Point appliance. It makes troubleshooting much easier. This software alone sets Check Point out in front of the competition.

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JV
Principal Associate at Eurofins

The logging and central policy management are the most valuable aspects for us as we were not having success earlier with the ASA in terms of upgrading/managing. We are still exploring more features like IPS and IDS. We hope that these aspects will be a great experience for us as well. 

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AK
Network Security Consultant at Atos Syntel
  • Antivirus
  • IPS
  • They got the logs into one site, which is wonderful.
  • There is a secure action line code that you can announce your products in.
  • If you have a number of sites, like a hundred sites around the world, you can deploy multiple VSX testing. 
  • All over the world, you can have DMZs in data centers, e.g., in the USA, Dubai, and London. 
  • It is easy to deploy and upgrade. 
  • Easy to manage, e.g., if there is a new engineer onsite, they can easily manage it.
View full review »
LS
Network Administrator at Bodiva

It includes features like IPS, which keeps us informed about potential threats attempting to breach our infrastructure, adding a crucial layer of security. It is user-friendly and straightforward to manage, which simplifies our overall network security management.

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SG
Network security architect at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

I like the Next-Generation Firewall. This is the primary feature and use case for this solution. It's a very important thing for us to have a solution that provides ease of use and an intuitive interface.

We are also using other security blades that are included in the package like URL filtering, identity awareness, IPS, antibot, and threat detection.

The most valuable thing for us is to have the possibility to use all the security blades and all security products and have a consistent policy among different security features. Reporting and integration with external solutions are great.

View full review »
Jonathan Ramos G. - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Engineer at ITQS

The most outstanding feature of Check Point is the possibility of having more than 60 indicating services within it. Among the most outstanding in keeping safe is its rule management, VPN configuration, SSL, and, above all, HTTPS Inspection, which is a solution that allows us to see what users do. We can decipher the activity of each connection and see what is inside it. In this way, we ensure that the data is not violated or violated by third parties outside our organization and we validate the internal and timely security. 

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JJ
Project Manager at Junta de Andalucia

Check Point has a centralized console that makes it possible to manage all the deployed equipment. It also has a built-in VPN service that lets users connect through VPN to our organization, which facilitates teleworking while cutting off unauthorized access to the organization's internal network.

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MB
Network Security Administrator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

The best features are the stability and the performance of the firewall and its software blades, simplicity to write the firewall rules on its GUI, and its logging capabilities.

The firewalls are working stably, without any interruptions. As we planned our capacity well, we've never had any performance issues.

The firewall rule writing and object creation are the best and simplest I've seen on a firewall (I've looked at 6 different vendors). I often wonder why the other vendors don't do it Check Point's way.

To see the logs, we can search like a search engine, and we can combine different search strings to pinpoint the interesting traffic.

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SR
Security Engineer at Hitachi Systems

What I like most about Check Point Firewall is that it is easy to use. 

The most valuable feature is the IPS. For our bank project, we are using it as an external firewall. All the traffic is going through the Check Point Firewall. Then, using the IPS, we can easily identify if there is any malicious activity or anything else. We also have to update signatures on a regular basis.

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Robert Bartos - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales IT solutions at ICCO

The interface is user-friendly, and also they give you small training courses on the Coursera website to explain how to use the products.

The dashboard provides a quick overview of the security status, including key metrics, alerts, and recent events. This helps administrators get a snapshot of the network's security posture.

The ability to monitor network traffic and security events in real time is crucial. Check Point's interface often provides real-time visibility into network activity, making it easier to identify potential issues or threats.

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BM
Supervisor Tecnico at Grupo MCoutinho

I have to say that it was Application Control and web filtering are excellent. We knew we had users watching videos and using not approved apps yet didn't have a way to centrally block them. With NGFW we do and we can set up profiles/groups of users with different permissions which allow for example IT to have media streaming access and "regular" users don't.

Also having a VPN concentrator on the same device is a plus since made our user management with Active Directory connection a lot easier and faster.

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TD
Network and Security Administrator at CNR-ISTP - Consorzio RFX in Padua at Politecnico di Milano

I like the dashboard, redundancy, log analysis, threat prevention and ISP, and VPN.

The dashboard has clean and focused menus and tabs, that offer immediate access to important information and configuration. 

Log analysis is really powerful considering the enormous amount of logged data. 

We use a specific function to control bandwidth occupation based on protocols and IP subnetworks.

Fundamental is the interoperability with RSA SecurID, Windows AD/Azure.

We're in the process of moving to the MS O365 cloud, and Check Point helps us with this.

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Fabian Miranda - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud computing at Tech Data Limited

The management console offers excellent visibility of all security options and configurations, also showing all the traffic from each user. 

Once you're working on a specific action, the interface will pop relevant information around past actions contradicting the new policy, showing you strictly where potential threats may come from. 

Admins and executives are more at ease with the compliance engine within the software as it measures how many of the security requirements we're compliant with, making their work much more accessible from that standpoint.

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Alessandro Bolzonella - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Security Manager at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees

VPN and mobile VPN are extremely valuable to us. The policies are simple to deploy to the new branches. 

All policies can be deployed and managed in a very simple way. 

AD single sign-on with VPN mobile is very helpful and simple to manage and deploy. 

Log management is also a good place to make troubleshooting and through console manage events. 

Management of the object is also a valuable feature. At every point in the console you can manage object properties and look to each policy where it is used and simply change or find where the object is involved.

View full review »
VP
Senior Technical Specialist at NTT Security

Check Point Endpoint anti-malware benefits include:

  • Improves user productivity and frees up system resources
  • The industry’s fastest malware and anti-virus scan and boot time
  • The smallest memory and disk footprints
  • A single-console centralized management
  • Prevention of malware from accessing endpoints with a single scan
  • Malware identified using signatures, behavior blockers, heuristic analysis
  • Protection automatically updated with optional Program Advisor Service
  • A knowledge base of more than one million trusted or suspicious programs
  • Integrated into Check Point Software Blade Architecture
  • Flexible licensing options—annual or perpetual
  • Centrally managed and deployed
  • Activate anti-malware and application control on any Check Point security gateway
View full review »
PD
Cyber Security Consultant at Capgemini

The IPS feature is the most valuable feature. We can block zero-day attacks within stipulated time intervals. The up-gradation activities are much simpler when we are dealing with Check Point firewalls. 

If there is a critical issue observed, the Check Point support team can create a custom package that we can deploy on the gateway to mitigate critical issues/bug fixes. 

The support reachability is very promising, as we can directly connect with them via call or chat from the support portal.

View full review »
TM
Senior Information Security Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The Threat Extraction software blade feature is the most valuable feature as it extracts any potential harmful content from several kinds of documents, which our users receive via e-mail or download from the Internet. We know, that our users tend to click on everything they get without thinking too much about the consequences. 

The second feature to mention is Threat Emulation, which is basically a sandbox, which runs executables received via email or downloaded from the Internet and creates a verdict if this executable is harmful or not in regards how it behaves on a specific operating system and application.

View full review »
BZ
IT System Operations Manager at Hamamatsu Photonics KK

They offer very scalable solutions to extend compute resources if needed so initial sizing isn't too much of an issue as you can easily add more resources if needed. Reliability is a major factor in any hardware or software solution, and Check Point uses leading-edge hardware, and their software upgrade process is flexible for various deployment requirements. 

Policy configuration has been consistent over the years, so there is not much of a learning curve as upgrades are released. 

Their threat analysis reporting from their management console is very comprehensive and easy to use. Their web-based dashboard is well designed and offers many out-of-the-box reporting, and provides admins extensive customizations.

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reviewer1692963 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works

Logging has been excellent. Being able to see all logs from all the various firewalls at different sites in one window has made fault finding much easier. We can see how the traffic is moving through the sites and on which firewall. 

It has also been easy to see machines that may have had infections as we can report easily on devices trying to talk out to sites and services that are known to be dangerous. We have these set up as an HA pair on our main site and we have a lot of audio and video services that go out over the web. 

The failover from one device to the other has been seamless and we find that we do not lose ongoing SIP calls or Teams chats. 

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reviewer1523535 - PeerSpot reviewer
IP LAN and Integrity Specialist at Chevron

The packet inspection capabilities are great.

ARP protections based on interface works better than it does with other vendors.

There are new improvements related to the upgrade of the solution, making for the easiest upgrade/update procedures.

New features allow for concurrent use of the console in write mode between different users.

The exposed API allows us to automate a lot of actions in a very easy way.

The central console and log collector are basically the best central management consoles, and each day provides new useful features like counts, etc.

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KP
Network Engineer at LTTS

IPS helps with security against upcoming and unknown threats and activities. We regularly check the report and as per daily report we will check the risk and prevent each alert that is critical based on our business requirement and make it secure.

IPSec VPN is also our key feature as our organization having widely customer across globe so it is very good feature to us to connect and run our business with them very smoothly and softly. 

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Saurabh Lahoti - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at Worldline Global

Check Point firewalls have significantly improved our ability to detect and prevent threats. The robust threat intelligence capabilities, coupled with real-time monitoring, have allowed us to swiftly respond to potential security breaches. As a result, we have experienced a noticeable decrease in security incidents and data breaches, which ultimately translates into cost savings and a bolstered reputation.

As our organization grows, so does the volume of data we need to protect. Check Point firewalls have proved scalable and can handle increased traffic and the addition of new services without compromising performance. This scalability ensures that our security measures are always aligned with our business growth.

One of the standout features of Check Point firewalls is their user-friendly management interface. This intuitive platform has streamlined firewall management, making it accessible to both our in-house IT team and non-technical staff. This has resulted in a more efficient use of resources and time, allowing our IT personnel to focus on other critical tasks.

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reviewer9814083 - PeerSpot reviewer
Flat Earth Networking, Inc. at Cyber Security Engineer

Mostly the logging features of the Check Point NGFW are the most valuable.  Being able to search in clear text is simple for the customer and for troubleshooting an environment. 

I also like that you can get trial licenses for just about every product solution.  This allows us to suggest a feature, implement it, and then show the customer that it has value. We tend to retain the customer on that product for the long term once it has been deployed and they are able to see what it's doing to protect them.

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SamirPaul - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Security Consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

The most valuable feature is its unique inspection model, which was initially a basic firewall inspection. Over time, they've developed and refined this model to cater specifically to trade-related intelligence. It is now a crucial and central component of their security infrastructure.

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TM
Telecommunication Team Leader at BIK

Its usability is the best for me. As compared to Palo Alto, Juniper, or Cisco firewalls, Check Point firewall has the best user interface for management, reading logs, looking for some objects, and looking for policies.

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Information Technology Security Specialist at AKBANK TAS

In my company, there have between ten and 15 firewalls on-premises, and if I want to configure or push the same configuration to all of the firewalls, then the centralized management system is easy and very helpful. 

It is difficult to convey the end-user experience. However, in general, administrators can get used to the interface and start working quickly. Especially after Revision 81.10, I can say that everything became more stable and faster in terms of management. It should be said that it does quite well on the DDOS side.

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Adhi Wahyu - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at RSUP Dr. Sardjito

The antivirus, antibot, and intrusion prevention systems are great. It's very important due to the fact that to prevent is better than to recover. The features play a critical role in preventing any security incidents from happening and minimalizing them before they become bigger problems. 

Its URL filtering feature is great. We can manage which users are allowed access to which websites at a certain time. We can also manage which application is allowed and forbidden for the users. 

Check Point has a vast list of applications it is able to manage - from torrents to games, social media, etc. 

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Champika Wijewickrama - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Security Engineer at EIT

One of the most advantageous features of Check Point firewall is its multi-interface capability. While traditional firewalls typically have a single interface, Check Point stands out by offering tools with multiple interfaces. This capability, now known as SmartConsole, allows users to manage policies, security objects, and routing points all from one dashboard. This contrasts with other firewalls where users often have to log in separately to access different functionalities. The hierarchical structure of communication and management in Check Point firewalls adds complexity, making it more challenging for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities. Additionally, Check Point introduced SD-WAN functionality in December 2013, further enhancing its capabilities and staying ahead of the curve in network security.

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KP
Network Administrator at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

As with any firewall, IPSEC VPN is the critical functionality. Not every organization has the budget to implement MPLS or SD-WAN, which makes IPSEC the go-to for site-to-site connectivity. 

Another critical blade/feature is the application control blade in combination with URL filtering. These two security features, tied together with identity awareness, are a game changer and allows an admin to be as granular as possible when blocking specific applications or allowing a specific application to a specific user/department within the organization

View full review »
Amar Gadge - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer Security Management at BT - British Telecom

We like the SecureXL, CoreXL, and Multi-que.  Using these features improved the performance of the gateway at a more granular level.

The Smart View Event monitor is great. You can see the real-time events on the firewall - including remote access VPN usage.

The smart licensing is great. It's easy to generate the license and apply it on the gateways.

The solution offers very good anti-virus and anti-spam capabilities. It's good security on the network.

Threat Prevention and Sandboxing are useful to have. We're protecting the network from zero-day vulnerabilities and securing the network from the latest cyberattacks.

View full review »
AY
Jr. ISO at BancNet, Inc.

The following features are most valuable: 

  • Threat prevention
  • Malware prevention
  • IPS
  • IDS
View full review »
BW
Consultant at work@lim.it Systemhaus

Since the log files of all services are collected on the management server there is an easy and good view of all actual connections, attacks, or security risks.

In addition, when using the SmartEvent software blade, you get the possibility to have an easy to configure event correlation system, which will automatically fire mail alerts or can even block IP addresses if there are network or security anomalies detected on the firewall system.

This is also possible if the services are allowed - for example, if there are flooding attacks on server systems.

For example, this has prevented our Citrix Netscaler from being taken down during attacks.

View full review »
Nagendra Nekkala - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager ICT & Innovations at Bangalore International Airport Limited

The product is very user-friendly. The configuration can be managed and customized as required. We can customize the tool for each stakeholder.

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AH
Security Consultant at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Its functionality is highly satisfactory. In the newer Check Point version, there are additional features in VPN and IP security that enhance tunnel security. This flexibility extends to the Check Point MDM platform, allowing for streamlined management across different domains. In my current client's complex infrastructure, there's often a need to replicate rules from one firewall to another within the same room. With Check Point, it's a straightforward process of creating the rules in one policy and then easily copying and pasting them into other policies.

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Ankita  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Application Developer at Capegemini Consulting India Private Limited

Check Point NGFW bifurcates, channels, and segregates internal networks. It builds a secure VLAN and separates it for every department.

It's scalable and provides end-to-end resolution. It offers services like navigation, control, and filtering and ensures that all users stay connected to business applications while restricting traffic.

Check Point NGFW is great for data and system security management against malware and phishing attacks.

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Thapelo Kwesi Baabusi - PeerSpot reviewer
ICT Manager at Engineers Registration Board

The most valuable features are the application and user control. This allows me to allow applications that encourage productivity and limit those that hinder productivity. The Network Address Translation (NAT) will always be a valuable feature as it allows me to turn my private cloud to the public at the click of a button and have secure control over the accessible servers/applications. sandboxing is also a valuable feature that allows the NGFW to act as an anti-malware, this would be largely helpful to prevent or minimize ransomware attacks.

View full review »
S
Network Security Engineer at Fujairah Port

The most valuable features include:

  • Application Control
  • SSL Inspection
  • URL Filter
  • IPS/IDS
  • Virus Scanner
  • ATP
  • DNS Sinkhole
  • File Content Scan (Archived Content)
  • Link Protection
  • Safe Search
  • VPN
  • Anti Bot/Anti-Spam
  • Threat Emulation/Extraction

Each and every module provides 100% accuracy. 

Their threat emulations and Bot Services are excellent.

Additionally, they have an excellent support team working around the clock. The engineers have excellent knowledge and provide us with a resolution in a very timely manner.

I have been using Check Point technology since 2011 and recently I have deployed new NGFW, the upgraded version, in a cluster along with the management box.

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VJ
Senior infrastructure technical lead at Westpac Bank

Dashboards for rules management and trackers for firewall logs capture are useful.

Traffic flow in Check Point is very structured so that it is easy to understand the path it checks to understand which elements come first and which elements come later.

The smart log compiles from multiple CMAs is an important feature that is very attractive. 

The MDM dashboard is very organized compared to other vendors. The use of CLI tools like TCPDUMP and FW monitor are very useful in verifying the traffic logs.

Objects search and tracker logs are useful.  

View full review »
VN
TitleManager - Datacenter IT at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

I love the redesigned interface starting with R80 as well as the ability for multiple engineers to work on the policy simultaneously. Policy management is simplified and the virtualization options help us to plan for future deployments in a much easier way. While we haven't tried out all the features available - like Sandblast, AntiBot, URL filtering, etc. - the fact that these are available to use is definitely a plus. We were able to use the IPS features, negating the deployment of an expensive standalone IPS solution.

View full review »
CB
AGM Cyber Security CoE at Bata Group

We are using the Check Point Next-Generation Firewall to maximize protection through unified management, monitoring, and reporting. It has the following features:-

  • Antivirus: This stops incoming malicious files at the gateway, before the user is affected, with real-time virus signatures and anomaly-based protections.
  • IPS: The IPS software blade further secures your network by inspecting packets. It offers full-featured IPS with geo-protections and is constantly updated with new defenses against emerging threats.
  • AntiBot: It detects bot-infected machines, prevents bot damage by blocking both cyber-criminals Command and Control center communications, and is continually updated.
  • Application Control: It creates granular security policies based on users or groups to identify, block or limit the usage of web applications.
  • URL Filtering: The network admin can block access to entire websites or just pages within, set enforcements by time allocation or bandwidth limitations, and maintain a list of accepted and unaccepted website URLs.
  • Identity Awareness: This feature provides granular visibility of users, groups, and machines, enabling unmatched application and access control through the creation of accurate, identity-based policies.
View full review »
Gulrez - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at Kotak Mahindra Bank

The threat emulation blade and user identity awareness feature has helped us a lot in terms of perimeter security and have given us granular visibility of user access.

The integration with third-party vendors is quite easy and well defined, which really helps you with the automation.

The integration of gateways with a centralized managed server gives you full control in a single place.

The setup and implementation are quite easy and the logs and reports are elaborative and effective for securing the network.

View full review »
SV
Senior Engineer Security at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

The feature I like the most is their central management, the Smart controller which you can use to manage all the firewalls from one location. You can get practically all information — but not all the information, because not everything has been migrated from the previous SmartDashboard version into the SmartConsole. Being able to access almost everything in one location — manage all your gateways and get all your logs — for me, is the best feature to work with. 

As for the security features, that depends a bit on what you're doing with it, and what your goal is. But they're all very good for application URL filtering. Threat Prevention and Threat Extraction are also great, especially the Threat Extraction. It's very nice because your end-user doesn't have to wait for the file that he's downloading to see if it's infected, if it's malware or not. It gives him a plain text version without active content, and he can start working. And if he needs the actual version, it will be available a few minutes later to download, if it isn't infected. That's a great feature. 

Anti-Bot also is also very nice because if a PC from an end-user gets infected, it stops it from communicating with its command and control, and you get notification that there is an infected computer.

It's difficult to distinguish which feature is best, because they're all good. It just depends on what your goals are. As a partner, we are implementing all of them, and which ones we prioritize depends on the client's needs and which is the best for them. For me, they're all very good.

View full review »
IE
Cyber Security Consultant at Wirespeed

I like the GUI. In terms of functionality, it used to be the detection capability. Check Point has good security intelligence, which helps detect threats. They have the historical background to do that. But now, Fortinet is a bit better. 

View full review »
Vasilis Evgeniou - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Security Pre Sales Engineer at Westnet S.A.

Sandboxing is the most valuable feature. A majority of the configurations are very accurate. We can find what an organization's user is downloading from the internet.

View full review »
PriyanshuKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Developer at The Digital Library

The most valuable services it provides are end-to-end resolution and perimeter protection; It blocks traffic based on IP address, applications, and content.

Check Point NGFW is best in terms of comprehensive protection against network threats, malware, and phishing. It has great anti-phishing algorithms.

View full review »
JH
Payroll Specialist at Dice

The software provision of uncompromising security models across all the company applications has stimulated increased production. 

It has given the IT team full control and setup authority to scale down and deploy security to the most demanding platforms. 

The solution is safeguarding our financial databases and always has prevented fraud while giving employees peace of mind. 

The software has enabled us to come up with a unified dashboard that can monitor all accounting operations and investigate when there are security loopholes that can lead to data mismanagement.

View full review »
RW
Senior Systems Engineer at Upper Occoquan Service Authority

The console or the single interface on the blades is most valuable.

View full review »
IY
System Administrator at Grant Thornton

The solution offers very good central management, which saves time and is hassle-free.

One of the most useful new feature is dynamic definitions. For example, if you need to allow all of the Microsoft Azure IP addresses, you can insert them dynamically and Check Point will update them for you. Without it, to find all IP addresses would be almost impossible.

You can create additional layers for the firewall rules. This allows better organization and performance of the product by skipping to the rules that are responsible for this group of protected devices.

View full review »
EL
Network administrator at IHSS

The sandbox feature is great.

The Sandblast blade is a very powerful solution that works against archives infected with ransomware.

The anti-malware is quite effective as many applications can be infected with any kind of malware with the goal of interrupting the productivity of our work equipment.

The reporting is great.

With this solution, we have had many kinds of logs and a very friendly way to view them. Now can we know what is happening within the network's traffic.

The performance has been very good. 

This security solution has grown more options and has expanded slots, including RAM slots, Optical Fiber slots, and various other features.

View full review »
MA
Service Manager at a construction company with 10,001+ employees

Check Point NGFW provides a bunch of different products or Blades, as they call it in Check Point. The firewall engine is what we use the most but we also use the IPS IDS and Anti-Bot features. The solution provides many features.

View full review »
GB
Consultant - Site Reliability Engineering Manager (SRE) - Managed Services at Servian

The API is handy and we are now testing how we can add rules via code. Also, the GUI is easy to use.

The Terraform module for Check Point is complete and really useful for managing the firewall.

Mail filtering is a really good feature that we are implementing for scam protection. 

The graphic interface is really easy to use and easy to teach to other members of the team.

The online documentation is complete and easy to read and understand.

The 3-year warranty offered is nice to have with no extra costs needed from us.

View full review »
VP
PLM Consultant

URL filtering, Application Control, and the Intrusion Prevention System are the features that almost every client wants to be guaranteed by their security appliances. 

Check Point NGFW also generates very helpful reports based on the logs of the activated features, including the features mentioned (URL filtering, Application Control, and the Intrusion Prevention System, as well as anti-bot and anti-spam). 

Sandblast is also a great feature, soon to be added to this solution through endpoints.

View full review »
YK
Chief Information Security Officer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Extracting data from the logs and utilizing the log analyzer tool provides valuable insights and enhances the product's overall effectiveness.

View full review »
VC
Implementation Specialist at NTT Security

The Check Point firewall features for Next Generation Firewalls are excellent. Through scripts, we can easily push firewall rules, extract, and import as per availability. Scripting is the best way to support the firewall functionality and it's been supported by all major versions. We can monitor all types of logs (traffic logs, management logs, and active logs). 

The firewall is EDR-supported; we can block or allow the URLs as per phishing or detection. 

Firewall flow and logs analysis is awesome.  

View full review »
Priyanshu Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Specialist at Tech Mahindra

The integration of the Check Point Next Generation Firewall in my organization has taken over one year. It helps to segregate the internal network and build a secure VLAN that separates every department.

We like the scalability, end-to-end resolution, and customized productive services. This makes Check Point Next Generation Firewall far better than any alternative present in the market.

It offers services like navigation, control, and filtering, which ensure that all users stay connected to business applications.

Check Point Next Generation Firewall Protects systems from all types of internal and external threats.

View full review »
erdemerdag - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Operations Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Check Point gateway and management installation are very easy. After the console-based installation steps, you can continue on the web GUI interface. This is very valuable. It doesn't let you make a simple mistake, which might be a reason to install all the systems from the beginning. It has been designed to give you flexibility as much as needed; not more, not less. It prevents human mistakes, basically.

If I have to say just one thing as the most valuable; I will say it is the most reliable firewall solution in the world. It is easy to prove that when I compare the number of CVEs which are published in a year among firewall vendors.

View full review »
RS
Network at financial sector

I enjoy the application control for user traffic control to the internet and the tcpdump command for troubleshooting.

When applying application control, we can ensure user access to the internet in accordance with company policy and easy implementation if some users need exception access.

There is an easy troubleshooting network connection via logs and monitoring menu. We often use this menu for checking connections and if the traffic is not in the logs menu, we can use the tcpdump command from the ssh session to the gateway. It's the fastest way to troubleshoot.

View full review »
JJ
Network and Security Engineer at BIMBA & LOLA, S.L.

The centrally managed firewalls are great. We can save a lot of configuration time in configuration tasks. We have deployed about 200 devices in record time due to the fact that we use a unique policy for almost all of them.

Logs, Views and Reports are the most detailed compared to other vendors (FortiGate, etc.) We can see a lot of detail in the logs and also we can configure any report we need without any problem and in two clicks.

We can see that, for IPS signatures, we have updates every day, sometimes twice a day, so we see a lot of effort from the vendor. They really try to protect our environment from known attacks and vulnerabilities.

View full review »
BI
Technology Architect at BearingPoint

The most valuable features are the identity-based access and high-quality intrusion prevention functionalities. 

One of the most valuable aspects is the central management, which includes a large wide range of API calls. With the central management, we can define a reasonable security policy for many sites and not only for network segments but for user and AD groups. This gives us a bit more "Zero Trust" in our network.

It's enabled us to move away from basic LAN to LAN segmentation to a more powerful user separation approach.

View full review »
ST
Technology consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Check Point's new Smart dashboard has an all-in-one configuration interface. They provide a very easy configuration for NAT and one tick for source & destination NAT is possible.

Policies can be configured in a more organized way using a section & layered approach.

Application control has all of the required application data to introduce it into policy and the URL filtering works great, although creating regular expressions is complicated.

The software upgrade procedure is very easy; it just needs few clicks & we are done.

View full review »
Rohit Gambhir - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
  • Antivirus
  • Threat Prevention
  • The central management

These are vital, advanced firewall features for the market. They protect the environment more than the usual firewalls. 

View full review »
Adrian Cambronero - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at ITQS

One of the valuable characteristics of Check Point NGFW is that it presents very centralized management. Due to this, it's improved our security throughout the organization and outside of it. Many collaborators work from their homes or different places and help us filter, limit of access to packet inspection with flexibility and speed that was not previously possible.

Other characteristics are the records that it shows us and generates depending on its configuration and they are very visible to be able to attack and correct in time, or when superiors ask us for administrative information in that part it provides great value.

View full review »
AC
Works at sep2

I have found the VPN and the application control/URL filtering the most valuable features. The main reason for this is that the VPN blade allows easy VPN setup between two VPN gateways, allowing for not only site-to-site VPNs but also for remote users to connect to the Check Point gateways. This feature is easy to set up. Also, users can troubleshoot the VPNs very in-depth.

The application control and URL filtering features are valuable since they allow very granular control of what is coming in and out of a network. Instead of just allowing certain Layer 4 ports in/out of the network, specific applications can be allowed, which not only can tighten a security posture. It makes administering the product easier as, when a new app is rolled out, it can simply be added to the policy.

View full review »
Hugo Alexis Espinoza Naranjo - PeerSpot reviewer
Perimeter Security Administrator at a security firm with 51-200 employees

We like that we can create different VPN services connected from site to site or remote desktop connections to establish connections from point to site or from site to site, thus giving us a really high capacity to establish and manage simultaneously. This has allowed us to be a little more flexible, giving each of the members of the organization the possibility of working from home and being able to interconnect with the different branches of our central service quickly, safely, and efficiently. 

View full review »
Paola Zúñiga Rojas - PeerSpot reviewer
Agente de servicios al cliente at Grupo Purdy

The most valuable feature is the ability to emulate the attacks of all those attachments or events that we have. That way, we can find a quick and easy way to clean, examine, and analyze what is happening within our organization. It ensures the end user is given an attachment that is a clean document - both safe and reliable. 

Today, Check Point invests a lot in technology, and that gives us the best security and clear confidence that we are working with a first-world company that will always be at the forefront of security and analysis. They protect us as an organization by providing us with quality services every day.

View full review »
kenyan_reviewer - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at Pevans EA Ltd

The following features have been valuable:

1) IPS - The edge security posture has dramatically improved as we can now detect and prevent threats from the public internet. The firewall can block know threats using the inbuild Intrusion Prevention blades.

2) VPN - We can connect with other organizations using site-to-site VPNs for inter-organization communication.

3) Management Blades - Check Point comes with a strong management solution that allows us to monitor and track detected and prevented threats. It also helps us be in compliance with industry standards.

View full review »
rblog - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at Trends and Technologies Inc.

Check Point NGFW has all the security blades a certain company would want to implement for a network firewall facing the public internet. The upsides of choosing this kind of firewall are traffic acceleration, core acceleration, and interface acceleration which would help in maintaining smooth sailing activity, giving administrators less dilemma. 

Administrators always find it hard and disturbing when such a network bottleneck occurs spontaneously out of nowhere. With that said, Check Point still ranks first among other vendors.

View full review »
PD
Cyber Security Consultant at Capgemini

It provides an SSL inspection facility. The SSL/TLS protocol improves the privacy and security of traffic by wrapping network communications in a layer of encryption and applying robust authentication. While this is a major benefit for data security, cyber threat actors also use SSL/TLS to conceal their activities on the network. An NGFW must go beyond signature-based detection to use technologies capable of detecting and remediating novel and zero-day threats.  

Sandboxing (including static, dynamic, and behavioral analysis) is great.

View full review »
SW
Service Manager Datacenter LAN at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

QoS, Anti-Bot, IPS, and Application Control are the main features we're using.

The QoS blade is very good for controlling traffic such as Windows patches, mail traffic and other stuff. In the past, sometimes we had no control and couldn't help when too much traffic had occurred.

Anti-Bot is great at preventing our clients and corporate network from calling the central control.

IPS is good in protecting our systems in DMZ zones when patching of servers sometimes can't be done.

Application control for controlling Cloud Apps like MS Teams, M365 Apps, or others, is perfect. Previously, we had only IP Lists for stuff like this.

View full review »
TD
Senior Cyber Security Consultant at Yapi Kredi

Check Point Next Generation Firewalls have numerous blade options such as Anti-bot, IPS, and URL filtering. In most cases, one box could be sufficient to use all these blades. You can manage all these blades from a single console. This feature lowers your administrative workload. 

If you have comparatively small branch offices, in addition to administrative workload, instead of spending money for security products such as proxy or IPS, Check Point Next Generation Firewalls could meet your requirements. 

View full review »
DD
Sr. Network Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

What I like about this firewall is it has a central management system. We can configure or monitor a number of firewalls at a time from the central management system. 

They have a logging system where we can have our logs visible. The logs are easy to view and understand. 

View full review »
PS
Principal Network and Security Consultant at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Among the valuable features are antivirus, URL inspection, and anti-malware protection. These are all advanced features.

One of the great advantages of having Check Point as a firewall is that all of these are software blades, so you can buy a license or subscription and enable them and get the security up and running. With other firewalls, it's a completely different agenda, meaning some of them require hardware modules, and some of them have a complex way of adding the licensing, etc. Check Point definitely has a great architecture, where you can just enable the software blades and deploy a secure service. Overall, it provides ease of deployment and ease of use.

View full review »
SR
Technical Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Its most significant strength lies in its superior threat detection engines.

View full review »
SQ
IT Manager at Gainwell Technologies

As a security professional with over ten years of experience, I've seen firsthand the devastating impact that cyberattacks can have on organizations of all sizes. That's why I'm so passionate about using the best possible security solutions to protect my clients.

One of my favorite security solutions is Check Point NGFW. It provides comprehensive protection against a wide range of cyber threats, including malware, viruses, ransomware, phishing attacks, and zero-day threats. It is also designed to deliver high performance even in the most demanding environments, and it can be scaled to meet the needs of organizations of all sizes.

I've also found Check Point NGFW to be very easy to use and manage, even for users with limited IT expertise. This is important to me because I want to make sure that my clients can focus on their business without having to worry about complex security solutions.

Overall, I highly recommend Check Point NGFW to any organization that is looking for a comprehensive and effective security solution.

View full review »
MR
Security Engineer at Netpoleons

The solution's best features include:

  • A packet-filtering firewall that examines packets in isolation and does not know the packet's context.
  • A stateful inspection firewall that examines network traffic to determine whether one packet is related to another packet.
  • A proxy firewall (aka application-level gateway) that inspects packets at the application layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model.
  • A Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) that uses a multilayered approach to integrate enterprise firewall capabilities with an intrusion prevention system (IPS) and application control.
View full review »
WB
Senior System Administrator at Seminole Electric Cooperative, Inc

We've found threat emulation, application control (with identity awareness), and HTTPS inspection to be the most valuable aspects. It allows managers the flexibility to grant access to high-risk sites based on groups/roles and yet still be protected with threat emulation and HTTPS inspection. We've seen the rate of detection on our endpoints plummet. 

I've found that, over the last 4 years, they have constantly improved the user interface (SmartConsole) as they have moved away from four Control panels for different functions and are constantly adding new features with no impact on our availability during upgrades.

View full review »
ES
Innovation Consultant at KPN IT Solutions - Trusted Services

Trustworthiness and stability are the key aspects when looking at these products. 

The up to date-ness of the threat intelligence and the underlying network of devices adding value to it is good. 

With many of their own investigators adding their findings to the threat database, Check Point has become a leader in having their product in the higher ranks of the spectrum of efficiency. 

The different hardware models focus on a wide spectrum of the market, so any company can choose a model that makes sense for them from the range.

View full review »
BD
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

It provides the flexibility to use any module with the NGTP and SNBT license. Depending upon the requirements, the blades/module can be enabled on the firewall security gateway and it can be deployed easily.

In case SSL decryption or IPS need to be enabled on any security gateway, it is simple to do. We can go ahead and enable the module/blade and then create a policy, deploy it, and it will start to work.

It has a default five-user license for Mobile/SSL VPN, so the organization can check the solution any time or can even provide access to critical users on an as-needed basis, without getting the OEM involved, all on the same box.

For smaller organizations with the correct sizing of the appliance, they can use the full security solution on a single box. It will provide financial benefits along with reducing the cost of purchasing additional solutions or appliances. 

For example:

  • URL Filtering Module: It can replace the proxy solution for on-premises users with integration of application control and the Identity module. Active Directory access can be provided based on the User ID and the website or application.
  • SSL VPN or SSL decryptor, and more. 
  • Core assignment for each interface, which can be done using the CLI. If the administrator determines that a particular interface requires more compute, he can manually assign additional cores accordingly. This is done by enabling hyperthreading on the firewall. 
  • The policy can be copied from any security gateway and pasted onto another one.
View full review »
MA
Sr. Network Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Check Point's Next Generation Firewall has many good features. It has a central management system, and that means we do not have to go to each and every firewall to configure it. We can manage them with the central device. 

There are also additional features, compared to a Layer 4 or Layer 3 firewall, such as AV signatures and devices, which are very helpful for securing the company's network.

View full review »
MG
IT Security Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

With the new capabilities embedded into R80.XX flavor it is possible to achieve great flexibility while defining your security policy. It is possible to utilize a variety of objects to define static or dynamic criteria for inspection and reduce general rule base size and complexity, while not giving up on security

The security research team is doing a great job staying on top of ongoing threats and releasing fixes for ongoing attacks within days or sometimes hours.

Check Point always actively listens to its customers trying to identify emerging needs and satisfy them pro-actively

View full review »
IU
Senior Network Security Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

The solution plays an important role in preventing security incidents from happening and preventing malicious attempts to infiltrate into the organization while quickly adapting and reacting to any attempts. For example, it protected us against Log4J vulnerability a few months ago.

It is easy to administrate and maintain.

The product is very granular in the Logs & Monitor section and also intuitive to use.

It offers good control and visibility over users' identities and actions.

It provides central policy management, which is easy to manage and maintain.

The product offers great performance tuning features like SecureXL, CoreXL, HyperThreading, and Multi-Queue.

View full review »
SA
Senior Network Engineer at Siltronic

We have been using Check Point NGFW to protect the business-critical data from the other networks and provide secured access to the users best on the authentication, integrated with the Active Directory. 

We have been using packet filtering, stateful inspection, and VPN awareness along with user authentication and have not observed any performance issues in the last several years. If you are looking for a solid solution that is very stable in nature, this is the best choice.

View full review »
reviewer1856865 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineering and IS Access at SFR

The management of the firewall and advanced routing is great. It's easy to use and troubleshoot.

View full review »
Harold Suárez, MGP, PMP® - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Management and Deployment Team Leader at Sefisa

In addition to the different security features that Check Point security solutions have, their integration with other technologies makes the security environment a complete security type.

Apart from the technological and innovative solution, a point in favor of Check Point is the support provided by the manufacturer, since over time, we have not had any case that is not resolved, they have a good escalation process and highly qualified staff. 

The process of opening a case has different options that are convenient.

View full review »
ANDRES FELIPE GONZALEZ LUGO - PeerSpot reviewer
PROFESIONAL GESTIÓN TIC at GOBERNACIÓN DEL TOLIMA

The most valuable aspects of this product include:

1. Scalability. It has allowed us to grow in a safe way and in accordance with our particular needs.

2. Support. The attention of both the distribution channels and the manufacturer has allowed us to count on the help needed in critical moments and in an easy way.

3. All in One. This product contains all the services we require for the protection of our entire infrastructure, including also end-users who are most vulnerable.

View full review »
MB
IT Security Engineer at PricewaterhouseCoopers

Identity Awareness has been an absolute gamechanger in how we've been able to create rules within the company. It allows us to give access to certain resources in very specific ways that were not possible before.

The SmartConsole is a very powerful interface compared to many other competiting products, which allows us to seamlessly go from watching logs, to modifying the rule base and easily find what objects are used where or even check which logs are linked to a specific rule

Logs are very well parsed when sent to Splunk.

View full review »
reviewer1692972 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at PROWERS COUNTY HOSPITAL DISTRICT

There are many great features, however, with our last upgrade, we now have a web GUI that allows us to pull up multiple facets of the firewall environment. This feature has been very handy. There have been times we have a connectivity issue, and both sides are blaming each other. If I'm away from my desk and don't have my laptop, I can quickly bring up the interface on my phone and search through the logs, rule base, and VPN communities to help quickly troubleshoot the problem. I can't say it enough - this has been invaluable.

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GC
Senior Infrastructure Service Specialist at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Even though Check Point NGFW provides a set of security features that enforce protection on the network, the most valuable aspect is also the most used feature: the plain and simple firewall component. This is the core of the product and works to a great extent without the need for all other available bells and whistles. 

What may sound obvious is actually an important point to be weighed, since several platforms in the market promise miracles but fail to deliver the basics. Check Point NGFW most definitely delivers a great, stable platform in that regard.

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MG
IT Security Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Check Point NGFW is easy to use, flexible and provides good performance. The security of the product is excellent, we do not have to do a lot of patching or upgrades because of vulnerabilities.

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SK
Project Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

The most valuable feature of Check Point is the Centralized Management (MDS) and Virtualization (VSX) for the firewalls. Using these features provides enhanced security with reduced cost across different domains and tenants with complete segregation from the policies database and a user traffic perspective. Using these features is proving to be scalable as things are virtualized and the resources can be increased or decreased as per the demand or usage from a project perspective.

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PJ
Project Manager at SANDETEL

The most valuable feature in my opinion is the powerful deep packet inspection engine. This engine provides me with a great capacity to control the traffic generated by my users and provides our company with a very real vision of the use that users make of the network.

The reporting capability is very important as we are able to show the company management the benefits and the return on investment, in terms of securing our network.

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Sreegith Sreedharan Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Engineer at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech

VSX helps to reduce the physical footprint on datacenter racks.

The SmartView monitor and SmartReporter help us to monitor and report on traffic.

Centralized management and management high availability give the ability to manage firewalls in a DR scenario. 

Features such as the ability to simultaneously edit the rule base by multiple admins and revert to a previous rule base revision are very useful.

Having a separate appliance for logging helps us in meeting the security audit requirements, without having an overhead on management.

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MP
Network Security Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

There are many useful features including the Office VPN, which provides us with a seamless connection for users who are working remotely. This is helpful for our employees that are working from home, as they get the same office environment as if they were on-premises. It is also helpful for us as an organization because we have good control and visibility over their data, including network traffic packets.

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RM
Senior Network Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The most valuable feature would be the central management system of Check Point because we can manage multiple firewalls through it at the same time. It doesn't matter the location.

I also like the advanced Antivirus feature of Check Point.

The Threat Management feature makes it very easy to detect the vulnerabilities and other factors. We can make new policy according to it. Policy creation is very simple in Check Point. Because the logs are very good in Check Point Firewall, this reduces our work with the reports that we are getting from the Threat Management. It is very convenient for us to use the reports to make new policies for security and other things.

It is very user-friendly.

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IK
Security Expert at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees

The basic most valuable feature is the firewall itself.

The management platform, dashboard, graphical user interface, are one of the best, if not the best, in the business. It's the most intuitive and it's really user-friendly in day-to-day operations.

The VPN means you can communicate in an encrypted manner between sites. 

The application control and URL filtering are also very beneficial. They enable you to tighten security and decide which applications or websites you want to grant access to. In our company, we don't allow anyone to freely access the internet to surf all websites. Some sites may be sensitive and some of them may be inappropriate. It allows us to control the traffic.

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Maqsood M. - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead - IT Security Operations at MORO

The product offers a robust and intuitive experience, catering to the essential needs of users. 

The Cleanup Rule's ability to discard unwanted traffic and the inclusion of default Autonomous Threat Prevention Profiles simplifies security measures, catering to various deployment scenarios. I was impressed by how easy it was to activate blades and implement them on a security gateway, with the process taking less than five minutes. 

Additionally, the Smart Console's clear and efficient user interface ensures that the changes to the policy are swiftly made, with the added benefit of maintaining proper audit logs.

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Abnet Tsegaye - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Engineer at DeliverICT

One of the valuable characteristics of Check Point NGFW is that it presents very centralized management. Due to this, their security throughout and outside of the organization has improved. 

Many collaborators work from their homes or different places and help them filter and limit access to packet inspection with flexibility and speed that was not previously possible. 

The records that it shows and generates (depending on its configuration) make everything very visible to be able to adjust and correct in time. When superiors ask for administrative information, it provides great value. 

Its management web interface is very easy and user-friendly.

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SF
Technical Specialist at Tech Hat Pvt Ltd

The most valuable aspects include:

Security Management. In a single console, we can manage the policies. It includes all the included bundles, features, and monitoring of logs.

Packet Filtering. This is used to examine every packet of data passing through your network. 

Built-in High Availability. A standard backup feature should be included if you cannot risk losing your firewall. 

Bandwidth control and monitoring. It's important to control the use of the bandwidth you have available.

Policy verification/validation. Check Point provides a convenient abstraction for bundling the validation of data against an expectation suite. 

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DouglasSantos - PeerSpot reviewer
Junior Cyber Security Analyst | CCSE | CCSA | CC at Security4IT

The threat extraction is the most valuable aspect. It protects the final user and prevents them from falling into the trap of infected files. When a file needs to be downloaded by a machine user, this solution analyzes the file at the same time to send to the user a clean version of this file. If not infected, the real version is available. The threat emulation can scan the computer applications searching for malicious activities and block them according to policy.

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Diana Alvarado - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Admin at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

The most important features of this application are:

1- An easy implementation at the virtual level. This helps us to be able to have security in the cloud.

2- The monitor and records are shown from the security management environment, where we can validate many events that happen over time to improve security through the dashboard.

3- There is modern protection against current threats. All new Check Point protection features are included and ready to provide more protection.

4- The licensing includes management service.

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LD
Cloud Support at a tech company with 1-10 employees

The characteristic that has caught our attention the most is its easy implementation in Microsoft Azure. Under a template, the tool can be provisioned with the best practices. Its licensing can be BYOL or PAYG through Microsoft Azure where it can be licensed on a monthly basis.

The different implementation options create wide variability for users.

This security tool is also up-to-date against the most modern threats, constantly being updated globally to provide intelligence accumulated by other devices worldwide to combat computer insecurity.

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Edwin Solano Salmeron - PeerSpot reviewer
Soporte técnico superior at Acobo

The Next Generation firewalls are quite flexible in many of their characteristics. These devices have blades or sections or small spaces where they have additional features that we can use. That way, we are not only protecting our organization and other branches that belong to our company - we also have other features if the need arises. These are the features that will always help us to put safety first in our organization.

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AK
Network Engineer at Pevans EA Ltd

1. Intrusion prevention. Preventing and detecting well know vulnerabilities to our publicly accessible systems is easy. Inbuilt predefined security profiles can be deployed out of the box.

2. Virtualized security. Virtualized products are used to provide more scalability and ease of administration to the network.

3. Identity awareness. Granular policies on the firewall are based on identities.

4. Site-to-site VPN. We can make connections with partners securely.

5. Reporting. Prebuilt reports that are already in a well-presented manner could be presented to management.

6. Access Policy and NAT rules base.

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MA
IT Security Officer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Deep packet inspection, Layer 7, and application layer monitoring and detection are the great features of Check Point Next-Generation Firewalls. They greatly improve and protect an organization, its staff, and its resources. 

Check Point's SmartConsole is a great tool for admins as all firewalls can be centrally managed and all policies can be pushed as and when required by using SmartConsole. Log ingestion and threat hunting are also great functions in Check Point firewalls that enhances and improves a security posture. 

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MM
Systems Engineer at HarborTech Mobility

It's valuable as a next-level network security appliance for your enterprise.

It comes with advanced features like web filtering, app filtering, user-based policies to restrict web and application uses, tunneling, restricting bandwidth uses according to policy, load balancing, etc., and helps to cover almost all network security requirements.

Our IT team has installed a firewall on all of our company's workstations and laptops to keep our own data and our customer's data secure. This program runs in the background and I don't even notice it, but it keeps me secure at work.

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GA
President at NGA Consulting, Inc.

The protection has been outstanding! I have not had an infected machine behind the firewall since I first installed and started using NGFW. I appreciate the network health reports, the infected devices report, they make my job a lot easier by providing the information right there in the interface. 

With the web category blocking turned on, I can set it and forget it so that inappropriate business content is not brought into my network, it makes it easier to ensure that time isn't being wasted on non-business-related activities.

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GA
President at NGA Consulting, Inc.

The reporting feature has been helpful to get a quick understanding of network traffic and threats identified. Even if a false positive is identified, it's been helpful to perform more of a deep dive into what triggered the detection and to certify that there is a problem or that there isn't a problem.

Anti-virus and anti-malware on the NGFW device have been pretty solid and have caught many threats before they entered the network.

The event logs are relatively informative and can provide information on why traffic was accepted or rejected.

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NZ
Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

We are using the classic firewalling, the Intrusion Preventions System (IPS) and we also use Check Point Identity Awareness. The most useful feature is for sure the classic firewalling, however, we could get this feature also from other vendors. The most valuable feature is the highly integrated NGFW features such as the IPS or Check Point Identity Awareness, which makes Check Point the best choice on the market. They have been leading the market for 20 years. This is deserved, in our opinion.

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MP
System administrator at BINDER GmbH

If you have an HA Setup you will have zero downtime. Teams and VoIP traffic will also not get stuck; you would notice anything while switching to the backup module. 

The quality of the patches and hotfixes is great. We never had any issues during or after patching. All patches and hotfixes are well documented and if you have any issues the KB is very helpful. 

The log is very clear and can be filtered very easily. If you need to analyze not only the connection you can use the CLI to dump TCP packets. 

The activation of additional features is very easy and well documented.

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XE
Subgerente de Tecnologías de la Información at ETAPA EP

The URL filter is activated to filter access to our employees. We use filtering for VPN access.

The configuration is one of the best features of this product.

When this product was purchased approximately 12 years ago it was the top of the line.

The product has been working very well.

I don't have any issues with the software of this solution. It works as is expected.

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LA
Network, Systems and Security Engineer at SOLTEL Group

I think that the most valuable feature is the prevention of known and zero-day threats because they are constantly trying to access your company and compromise its data. It is very important to have your solution always update for this.

I think that another important feature is that it is a cloud solution. More and more companies have all of their systems in the cloud and the threats are pointing here.

The features that a next-generation firewall includes are application and user control, integrated intrusion prevention, advanced malware detection such as sandboxing, and leverages threat intelligence feeds.

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Matt Millen - PeerSpot reviewer
Network & Systems Administrator I at Department of Mental Health

The simplicity of the access control is the most valuable feature for us. It gives us the ability to easily identify traffic that is either being allowed or denied to our network. The ease of use is important to us. The more difficult something is to use, the more likely it is that you'll experience some type of service failure. When we do have issues, with the Check Point SmartConsole being as simple as it is to navigate, it makes it easy for us to identify problems and fix them, to minimize our downtime.

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Mansur Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Architect at MORO

The product offers a robust and intuitive experience, catering to the essential needs of users. 

The Cleanup Rule's ability to discard unwanted traffic and the inclusion of default Autonomous Threat Prevention Profiles does simplify security measures; we're able to cater to various deployment scenarios. 

I was impressed by how easy it was to activate blades and implement them on a security gateway. 

The Smart Console's efficient user interface ensures that the changes to the policy are swiftly made. We're also able to maintain proper audit logs.

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TR
System Administrator at System Administrator

I personally like the SmartDashboard client best, which is the rule base management solution. You have a nice overview of the existing rules, and new rules are easily implemented. You can filter by IP, application, rule number, port, or hostname, so you easily find what you are looking for. Rules can be grouped by topic (internal, external, Internet, DMZ, etc.). It all can be well arranged to suit your needs. 

It also offers a dashboard to see recent threats, errors, or other issues with your gateways, as well as Logs for debugging.

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JT
IT Manager at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The solution is great for cyber attack prevention, data bridges, and other threats. You need intelligent and effective solutions to minimize cyber attacks and Check Point gave me peace in December when they had an unidentified log4j vulnerability.

Our main benefit was the elimination of a server/VM from our data center and the usage of a cloud solution.

Having all the features on the cloud was also a benefit since some products when migrated to cloud solutions lose some features  - but not his one.

The setup is a little bit rough and requires some technical expertise, however, this is expected with a solution as complete as a firewall and especially a Check Point one.

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NM
Logical Security Deputy Manager - IT at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Check Point is a robust and reliable security solution, whose architecture and design allow centralized administration with a graphical interface that facilitates its management. 

The way in which it manages the nodes within a cluster architecture is excellent, offering fault tolerance which is, in my experience, practically imperceptible when one of the nodes fails. This is thanks to the fact that it maintains a table of shared connections between the nodes and the large number of variables that it takes into consideration to validate the health of the nodes.

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IA
Solutions Architect Infrastructure and Security Manager at Jumbo Electronics Co. Ltd. LLC.

Check Point is awesome from a security standpoint. Based on our experience and also the experience of the other customers, it is a very stable appliance.

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JK
Senior Infrastructure Technical Lead at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

The VSX has been great. The ability to split single hardware into multiple virtuals along with support for dynamic routing using BGP is very useful for our environment.

We like the management console. The Check Point smart dashboard has made things easier for administration and we've been able to manage all the Check Point devices from one place which is very useful.

The operations support is great. There is a smart log system that is very good for troubleshooting and reporting. We also use the CLI for troubleshooting purposes (for the likes of FWMonitor and tcpdump) while the FW rules are managed via the smart console which does wonders for operations support.

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I.
Network security engineer at Fidelity Bank
  • The most valuable feature for us is the VSX, the virtualization.
  • The GUI is also better than what we had previously.
  • The third feature is basic IP rules, which are more straightforward.
  • And let's not forget the VPN.

The way we use the VPN is usually for partners to connect with. We want a secure connection between our bank and other enterprises so we use the VPN for them. Also, when we want to secure a connection to our staff workstations, when employees want to work from home, we use a VPN. That has been a very crucial feature because of COVID-19. A lot of our people needed to work remotely.

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GM
Head Of Technical Operations at Boylesports

There are many features we have found good.

The best feature is the ability to increase the capacity of the solution by exactly what you add, not losing anything for High Availability. This feature alone will save us as we increase the number of devices in the stack.

Having so many top-end products in one box also assists in managing this device. URL filtering and anti-virus and other services are easy to deploy but assist in getting your company a good name.

The Infinity product seems amazing but we have a long way to go before saying it is successful.

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SM
Network Engineer at Fujairah Port

The initial sizing is not a problem. You can easily add more resources if needed. Reliability is a major factor in any hardware or software solution, and Check Point uses cutting-edge hardware. Their software upgrade process is flexible for different deployment requirements. 

Their threat analysis reporting in their management console is comprehensive and easy to use. The web-based dashboard is well designed and offers a wide variety of out-of-the-box reporting. It offers admins extensive customization.

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CC
Technology at Partswerx

Check Point VPN has been most valuable to our organization. Having a hardware solution that allows our remote users to connect securely to our business is extremely valuable. 

The ease of use, setup and configuration backed by the knowledgeable support of Check Point has made this a smooth and easy setup. Our users can get connected securely, anywhere. When connected with our Check Point VPN endpoint, users get the same security and prevention from the threat prevention module as the rest of the devices on our network.

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KS
Senior Security Specialist at Tech Mahindra Limited

The SAM database, URL/application filtering and IPS, Data Loss prevention, VPN and mobile device connectivity, stateful packet inspection, and unified management console are all useful features. 

It allows us to avoid having to go and log in to each firewall device for creating the rules as it can be done from its central console. We can manage all the firewalls and create rules and deploy them through the smart console which is really good. It helps us avoid creating the same object in each firewall. 

Its auditing features are also good for checking who did what changes and when.

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NI
Snr Information Security Analyst at The Toronto Star

Check Point application control is very useful. This blade detects traffic and provides the ability to grant access based on the application and not the port as TCP/UDP can easily grant access for more than what's required.

The Check Point compliance model is also great. We can easily check firewall configurations against any compliance standard. It has made it easy to provide evidence and reports.

Check Point integrates with third-party user directories such as Microsoft Active Directory. The dynamic, identity-based policy provides granular visibility and control of users, groups, and machines and is easier to manage than static, IP-based policy.

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AH
Works

Remote access with a secure workspace provides a clear separation between the client and corporate network. 

Threat Emulation (sandboxing) is great for zero-day malware and it is easy to configure. 

Logging and administration are best-of-breed. You can quickly trace back on all sorts of logs in no time. 

IPS and AV rules are granular and specific for the rules that you need. 

The geolocation feature is good for dropping irrelevant traffic. 

Configuration through SMS is quick and easy. It eliminates administration errors while checking consistency before applying a policy.

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Gonzalez - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Administrator at Aguascalientes

Within the organization, the inspection of packages has given us great help in detecting traffic that may be a threat to the institution.

The configuration of policies has allowed us to maintain control of access and users for each institution that is incorporated into our headquarters. It is well organized.

Some other of the services that have worked well for us are antivirus, anti-bot, and URL filtering. Together, these have allowed us to maintain control and organization amongst the users.

Another one of the pluses that have helped us a lot has been the IPsec VPN, especially in these times of pandemic.

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AS
Technical Support Engineer at AlgoSec

I like that it first checks the SAM database. If there is any suspicious traffic, then you can block that critical traffic in the SAM database instead of creating a rule on the firewall, then pushing that out, which takes time. 

The Anti-Spoofing has the ability to monitor the interfaces. Suppose any spoofed IP addresses are coming from an external interface, it won't allow them. It will drop that traffic. You have two options with the Anti-Spoofing: prevent or detect. If any kind of spoof traffic is coming through the external interface, we can prevent that. 

I like the Check Point SandBlast, which is also the new technology that I like, because it mitigates the zero-day attacks. I haven't worked on SandBlast, but I did have a chance to do the certification two years back, so I have sound knowledge on SandBlast. We can deploy it as a SandBlast appliance or use it along with the Check Point Firewall to forward the traffic to the SandBlast Cloud.

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reviewer1396851 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deputy Manager (Systems) at State Bank of India

Advanced logging capabilities: Check Point generates extensive logs which may be very useful to figure out the issues. Its logs also contain too much information which can be used to modify the policy as per user need and organizational security environment. The same can be used to figure out probable attack surface or necessary steps for mitigation. 

Anti-spoofing security feature: Check Point has inbuilt by default enabled feature of anti-spoofing which reduces the attack surface from the spoofed IP addresses. 

IPS: Check Point IPS is one of the best products in the market.  

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RF
Manager for Operations, Security and Management at REN - Rede Energeticas Nacionais, S.A.

The most valuable features for us are identity awareness, IDS and IPS, and application control.

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mervemetin - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Türkiye İş Bankası

Firstly, inline layer technology is helpful because it will classify the traffic according to different security groups. This means that we can isolate them totally and it will also prevent human error because you are limiting source, destination, service, and application parameters at the top of the inline layer rule.

Check Point is very administrator-friendly and the SmartDashboard is easy to use.

The Blades and security features are also very innovative and up-to-date.

With the IPS blade, the administrator can write signature-based exceptions for specific users. This provides flexibility to except specific connections from specific signatures.

The cloning and copy/paste operations are very useful.

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TK
Technical Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Its greatest asset lies in its user-friendly interface, making it exceptionally suitable and reliable for managing gateways.

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TB
Security Analyst at M3

The features I found most valuable are the import, logging, and IPS.

The import makes it easier for us to copy the rules without starting from scratch, which will take lots of time. The next thing I find most valuable is the logging. The logging which is called Smartview can distill the logs into simple reports which makes it easier to see all the attacks and issues the firewall faces without diving deep into the logs. Lastly, the IPS is always new and up to date so the attacks that happen are always blocked.

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Manzoom Ahmed Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Security Engineer at C-Edge Technologies Limited

The SAM database and advanced blade are the most valuable aspects of the product.

The Check Point architecture and packet are very good.

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HM
Senior Solution Architect at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

The most valuable feature of Check Point NGFW is the unparalleled distribution of the network traffic. The central management station they have allows you to manage everything from one place.

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RP
Director at TechPlayr

We have not had any issues with the firewall.

Support is good and it's centralized architecture.

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OG
IT Director at Facultad de Ciencias Actuariales, Universidad Anáhuac México

The solution interface is good. It has three different ones: the NGFW, the Endpoint, and Harmony Mobile.

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Contracted IT Staff at Sağlık Bakanlığı-Turkish Ministry of Health

I have worked for several years with the Check Point platform (NGFW) and it is by far the most stable in hardware and software.

It is a very friendly platform and easy to configure. It is true that it is a bit expensive (according to the required blades), however, it is a platform that is worth having as security in a corporate environment. 

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RS
IT Manager at a transportation company with 501-1,000 employees

It's a NGFW with all of the capabilities required to protect for next-generation attacks at the perimeter level. The module or Security features that are provided as part of the base license with Check Point include (VPN, IPS, Application Control, and Content Awareness) which itself is strong enough to protect the organization.

The packet inspections have been a strong point. Our identity collectors have also been helpful. In many ways, Check Point has been a step up from the SonicWall that we had in-house before that. There's a lot of additional flexibility that we didn't have before.

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Vinay-Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT & Security at mCarbon Tech Innovations Pvt., Ltd.

The product is very easy to use.

It's quite a stable solution.

The scalability is very good.

The solution is easy to install and deploy.

View full review »
JC
CTO at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

There are many aspects of Check Point NGFW that are valuable and important to our organization, but I'd say the top three are intrusion detection and prevention, threat emulation, and threat extraction. These three features have set a good baseline of security on top of the normal application URL filtering and other services of the firewall.

The way in which a computer is immediately isolated if it starts behaving badly and I get a notification of an infected computer is also extremely nice and a great feature.

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Daphne - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at Junta de Andalucia

The most valuable feature is the powerful, deep packet inspection engine.

The management console and diagnostic tools are powerful and we are happy with them.

The reporting is detailed and helpful.

View full review »
BF
Senior IT Manager at a mining and metals company with 501-1,000 employees

Packet inspections have been a strong point. Our Identity Collectors have also been helpful. In many ways, Check Point has been a step up from our SonicWalls that we had in-house before that. There's a lot of additional flexibility that we didn't have before.

We saw a noticeable performance hit using SonicWalls. Whether it's because we've provisioned the Check Point gateways correctly from a hardware standpoint or whether it's the software that is much more efficient (or both), we do packet inspection with very little impact to hardware resources and throughput speeds are much improved.

With SonicWall, after it would calculate inspection overhead, we might see throughput at, and often below, 15%. My network administrator gave me data showing Check Point hovering at 50%, and so we were actually seeing Check Point fulfill its claims better than SonicWall.

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AU
Network and Security Specialist at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

The most valuable feature is definitely the logs. The way you can search the logs and have the granularity from the filter. It's just very nice. 

I love the interface of R.80.30. The R.80 interface is very nicely thought out with everything in one place, which makes Check Point easier to use. When I started in 2014, I was just confused with how many interfaces I had to go on to find things. While there are quite a few interfaces still in the older smart dashboard versions, most things are consolidated now.

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VP
Senior Manager, Information Technology at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
  • Easiness while working on all blade of firewalls 
  • Flexibility in NAT rules 
  • The new Policy Layers feature for building up the Access Control policy - the rules are now more understandable and efficient.
  • Also, even so, the new SmartConsole is declared to be unified starting from version R80.10, there are still some features that have to be configured in the old SmartDashboard (e.g. Mobile Access policy and Antivirus), or on the Gaia OS level (all the routing features).
View full review »
Oleg P. - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network and Security Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

1. Advanced logging capabilities - our support team on duty constantly monitors the security logs in the SmartConsole, and notifies the security team in case of major alerts.

2. Advanced networking and routing features - we use Proxy ARP to announced virtual IPs to ISP and bing domain names to it; BGP for dynamic routing over IPSec VPN tunnels to other environments, and Policy-Based Routing for connecting to two ISPs.

3. The new Policy Layers feature for building up the Access Control policy - the rules are now more understandable and efficient.

View full review »
SA
Network Administrator at N S PHARMACY SDN.BHD.

It gives me very detailed reports. The endpoint solution for clients is wonderful.

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EC
Solutions Architect, Cyber Security & Networking team at Expert Systems Ltd

They offer very scalable solutions to extend computing resources if needed. We can expand the capacity in a very short time. 

The threat analysis reporting from their management console is very comprehensive and easy to use. 

Their web-based dashboard is well designed and offers much out-of-the-box reporting, and provides admins extensive customizations. 

In the operational GUI, Check Point provides rich customization methods to allow us to easily visualize/categorize objects in different colors. It makes operating the firewall much easier.

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ÜG
Consultant at KoçSistem

There are a lot of features that I found valuable for our customers. 

For example, active-active and active-standby high availability features are very useful. 

If you want to share traffic loads to both cluster members you can use the active-active feature, if you don't want to share traffic loads you can prefer active standby. Your connections sync on both cluster members at both high availability choices. That way, your connections are never lost. 

Another valuable feature is performance improvement ability. With ClusterXL and CoreXL you can improve performance.

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TL
Networking engineer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise

The Identity-Based Inspection Control gives us the ability to leverage the organization’s Microsoft AD, LDAP, RADIUS, and Cisco pxGrid. 

The Terminal Servers group membership allows policies to automate typical processes (user moves/add/changes) and decrease configuration changes required on the firewall, which is tremendously beneficial. This limits the integration with the identity store to just one interface, and we still get broad security coverage based on a single set of identity policies. 

We leverage the combination of identity and application awareness, which is mandatory in order to build scalable security policies that protect the business without compromising user experience. This feature is extended to the SmartEvent console.

View full review »
RC
Senior Infrastructure Technical Analyst at https://www.linkedin.com/in/robchaykoski/

The management interface is well designed and easy to understand. It reduces the time for deployment, changes, and onboarding new customers.

The logging facility is amazing and gives great insights into traffic. Although Event Management is also amazing, it can be cost-prohibitive for other companies to onboard.

The ability to deploy VPN communities makes onboarding new sites easy. Multi-site configurations can be deployed with very little oversight and with minimal additional work after the initial deployment is successful.

View full review »
MH
Senior Network Engineer at Arvest Bank Group

The only area that Check Point still seems to excel in is their logging. Reviewing logs on Check Point is a snappy and intuitive process that allows the end-user to filter down traffic to specifically what they're looking for very easily and even with little knowledge of Check Point. 

The ability to create filters on the fly in the GUI with simple clicks to various areas of the log is fantastic and allows one to find exactly what they're looking for with very little effort. Note that this is probably the only thing Check Point still has going for it.

View full review »
PD
Sr. Security Analyst at Atos

Check Point is very strong as compared to the other vendors in the market.

The solution offers a very good centralized management console. 

It works well even for small deployments. 

The perimeter security is excellent. 

It works well even for cloud environments and has been very useful during COVID when people weren't necessarily in the office. 

The creation of policies is simple. It's easy to configure them when we need to.

We have found the troubleshooting process to be very easy and helpful.

The GUI is simple and straightforward. 

The sandbox environment on offer has been great. 

The support has been super-helpful. They've always been great, even at a pre-sales level.

The initial setup is very straightforward. 

View full review »
I.
Network security engineer at Fidelity Bank

The management of services, including forming access lists with the services we have, connecting servers to servers, permissions between servers and users — this is all great. In addition, Check Point has a really cool GUI.

View full review »
DZ
Director of Enterprise Solution at KMD Company Limited

Check Point NGFW provides essential security, featuring no-obligation access for secure connections, strong intrusion prevention, and comprehensive antivirus protection.

View full review »
Amier Wahab - PeerSpot reviewer
RESIDENT ENGINEER at NetAssist (M) Sdn Bhd

The most valuable feature of the solution is the Quantum Intrusion Prevention System (IPS). I also like the solution's functionality, like autonomous threat prevention.

View full review »
NG
Support at a security firm with 51-200 employees

The most valuable aspects include:

  • Mobile security. Check Point NGFW includes mobile security features that enable you to secure mobile devices and protect against threats such as mobile malware and phishing attacks.
  • Scalability: Check Point NGFW is highly scalable and can support large networks with high traffic volumes. 
  • View full review »
    RV
    Business Development Manager - Security at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

    Check Point offers excellent security.

    View full review »
    LO
    Infrastructure Manager at trt18

    I use it as well as a VM. We use it a lot because we have all fiber optic connections, so we could use almost all of that. The federation is beautiful because I can transfer all traffic to my main site where I can use just one link to the internet, and I can use it as a proxy as well. It is good to keep control and security.

    View full review »
    TK
    IT Consultant/Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

    We found a very successful implementation of the virtual private network client, since, for some time now, everyone has been working from home. With the firewall from Check Point, this function is implemented very conveniently and securely. 

    A convenient new version of the firewall management console, which, starting with the R80 version, has become standard for many Check Point blades, however, unfortunately, not for all. You still need to use older consoles to manage some features. For example, to access the monitoring blade, I need the old console, but the new console should start it.

    View full review »
    NO
    System Engineer at Infosys

    The product provides multiple security layers that build upon each other, from the traditional security policy that is IP and port-based to application security, intrusion prevention, and their latest sandblast cloud-based malware detection. 

    Everything is easily managed through their Smart Console dashboard. It's a very easy-to-understand dashboard that provides a detailed view. Check Point helps to resolve a lot of problems, such as showing our organization all known threats. 

    It is easy to deploy and manage. 

    The product offers a simple Web User Interface.

    View full review »
    AO
    Head of Technology at African Alliance Plc.

    The firewalling feature and the VPN functionality are excellent. With the firewalling functionality, I have been able to ward off intrusion from outside the network. With the VPN functionality, I have been able to allow secure remote connections from external customers and staff. 

    View full review »
    ED
    Senior Linux Administrator at Cartrack

    Many problems have been solved with these firewalls and we've largely been very satisfied. Thanks to this infrastructure that we have managed, in this pandemic time, to quickly and effectively offer the potential to remotely work for everyone has been good. 

    Also important is the separate management interface that has made it possible to carry out even the most operations while comfortably seated at the desk. It provides multiple profiles that you can apply depending on the scenario that presents itself.

    View full review »
    PL
    Firewall Engineer at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees

    Generally speaking, all features are well documented and the two platforms help with configuration. Documentation and knowledgebase articles in the user center as well as user recommendation within the forums are great. The Admin Guides are really well documented, but it's a lot to read.

    Check Point helps a lot with automatization which definitely reduces the effort to maintain the environment. The best example would be the CDT tool which helps with decreasing the amount of time for upgrading whole environments.

    View full review »
    RG
    Network Security Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

    The most valuable feature is the set of encryption options that are available.

    Viewing the logs in the interface is easy to do, which is one of the things that I like.

    This is a UI-based firewall that is easy to use.

    View full review »
    YK
    Network Security Engineer at R Systems

    The most valuable feature is that the scalable 64000 Next Generation Firewalls are designed to excel in large data centers and the telco environment as well. We have a lot of these types of customers, and these Check Point firewalls support them.

    In addition 

    • it supports dynamic objects, which we use for security purposes
    • the antivirus is quite effective
    • the logging and tracking are quite easy
    • overall, it is easy to use.
    View full review »
    CL
    System Architekt at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

    We use the basic firewall functionality, plus the VPN functionality, a lot.

    We have about 100 remote sites, which is where we use the VPN functionality. For private lines, we prefer to do further private encryption on the line. It is very convenient to do it with Check Point, if you have Check Point on both sides. It is convenient and easy to monitor.

    The firewall feature and DDoS Protector, when turned on, keep away attacks from the outside. They also prevent users from accessing things on the Internet that they are not supposed to access.

    View full review »
    AA
    Sr. Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

    The most valuable feature is the Check Point Management Server, especially version R.80 onward. We can manage everything. We have endpoint security, cloud security, and email security. Everything can be managed from a single management server, making this a very unique and easy solution to use in the market now.

    From a technical perspective, it is an easy solution to use. Everything seems perfect. We are not using all of its features, like sandboxing. 

    View full review »
    AR
    Senior Network Engineer at Infosys

    The distributed deployment is very helpful. This way, the burden on each device is less and management is very easy and CPU process utilization will be not high on a particular device - it'll be distributed on each device. Management is very easy.

    We like that it is a next-generation firewall where hackers would need to inspect down to a seventh layer, an application layer, and that offers us better protection. 

    The initial setup was straightforward.

    The solution can scale.

    View full review »
    CA
    Integration engineer at S21sec

    The support Check Point gives is key. As the Firewall vendor, I recommend them. It's always great to work with them. For this reason, I am very satisfied with Check Point. Every doubt I had they were pleased to help with and we ab;e to provide a resolution. The technical services always replied in a very fast and effective way. The live chat is great as well. There is always someone willing to help. This makes working with Check Point a good experience.

    Check Point expert mode is basically Linux, so working with that allows us to implement a variety of scripts.

    View full review »
    DS
    Senior Cluster Manager at Bajaj Finserv

    The solution boasts a host of features that we like. 

    View full review »
    PI
    IT Manager at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

    We basically use almost all the blades, since the IPS, Threat Emulation, Spam, etc., are essential for our work. However, currently, Mobile Access is the most valuable. The stability of the solution and the security it gives when working remotely is great. It lets our employees work from everywhere, anytime!

    The AntiSpam/Mail blade was also one of the main reasons we went with this product since we hosted our email server locally. This was an extra layer of protection on top of the existing solution.

    Threat and Application control are also very important to us.

    View full review »
    PD
    Associate Consult at Atos

    Check Point has the best technical support, which I feel if we consider other firewall vendors in the market, is an important distinguishing point.

    Stateful inspection is one of the strongest points in this product, which is applicable while creating policies for application and URL filtering.

    Check Point provides dedicated blades to monitor network traffic, which helps while troubleshooting network and packet-related issues.

    It is easy to filter traffic based on source-destination services, time, etc, which is an enhancement over other firewalls in the market.

    View full review »
    KK
    Network Associate at a wireless company with 1,001-5,000 employees

    I like the antivirus, attack prevention, three-layer architecture, and data center management features.

    The antivirus updates are quite frequent, which is something that I like.

    Central management is a key feature. We have between five and ten firewalls on-premises, and if we want to configure or push the same configuration to all of the firewalls, then the centralized management system is very helpful. It means that we only have to push the configuration once and it gets published on all of the firewalls.

    View full review »
    JG
    Network Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

    The solution is easy to use. I like the monitoring the most.

    View full review »
    JZ
    Senior Consultant at Integrity360

    The most valuable elements include:

    Smart View Tracker: To check the traffic logs easily. This is the best logging tool for me so far. You can identify almost everything from the logs, using a smart view tracker.

    Smart Dashboard: allows for rule creation and administration and management and is user-friendly. The administration allows you to copy and paste rules, move the order, and create objects, pretty easily. It is very handy.

    CPUSE: A Smart way to upgrade firewall software versions. You can easily verify if you can upgrade to the desired version, download the right package and upgrade, and also check the status of the upgrade. It's a great tool.

    View full review »
    DZ
    Security product manager at RRC

    It is easy to use, and its management is the best. Check Point has a great unified management solution for firewalls and security products. 

    View full review »
    RA
    AVP - IT Security at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

    Next-Generation Threat Prevention capabilities provide security in a high-traffic load, ensuring detection and prevention of known threats by AME, AV, and Sandblast technologies. 

    We are also using the system to create VPN gateways for our multiple partners and we haven't faced any issues with them.

     Check Point gateways are a stable product that can run without any issues until a major upgrade or vulnerability mitigation is required.

    The support has been reasonable and they were able to minimize the impact during critical incidents.

    View full review »
    AP
    IT Infrastructure & Cyber Security Manager at a retailer with 501-1,000 employees

    A firewall is a firewall. It's a Layer 4 machine that blocks or allows traffic for ports. That's the basics and we don't need a next-generation firewall for that. But the features that are important include:

    • IPS
    • sandbox
    • SandBlast
    • Anti-Bot
    • URL filtering.

    A basic firewall is a basic firewall. You don't need Check Point and you don't need Palo Alto or the other vendors to block ports from source to destination. But we need the advanced features of this product to give us the visibility into, and the security and protection from, scenarios that are not the usual source-to-destination attacks. The solution needs to understand what the connection is, what the behavior of the connection is, and what the reason for the connection is. It can't be a stupid machine. It needs to know that if you're allowing port 53 from source to destination, that it has to check and give us the information that this communication is legitimate, and not something that is malicious.

    View full review »
    LD
    Network and IT Security Admin at DP World Callao

    The most valuable feature of Check Point is the management console. Another feature that is most valuable for me is that the configuration is easier than other firewalls.

    View full review »
    PS
    Network security engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

    All of the features are very valuable, but the most valuable features are the sandboxing and the advanced IPS/IDS.

    View full review »
    reviewer1697127 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Works at a insurance company with 201-500 employees

    VPN, firewalling, and virtual patching are the most valuable aspects for me. The NGFW is so effective that I can go to sleep and vacation. Check Point products rarely have vulnerabilities that put the whole organization at risk, unlike some other firewall products.

    The VPN tunnels are very effective in terms of stability and quick connection.

    Virtual patching is useful as a workaround for zero-day vulnerabilities.                           

    It offers excellent filtering of URLs.

    View full review »
    OD
    Security IT Manager at IFAT Group

    The user interface is very good.

    The level of security is excellent. It protects our organization well.

    It's a good overall product and we have a high level of satisfaction with the features on offer. 

    View full review »
    Hassan Moussafir - PeerSpot reviewer
    Information Security Senior Expert at Wafaassurance

    Check Point provides very good performance with many solution options and many kinds of modules.

    View full review »
    AN
    Security Engineer at Gosoft (Thailand)

    The most valuable feature is the next-generation firewall (NGFW) protection.

    Check Point has long been a leader in the firewall market. It offers Quantum Security Gateways for a wide range of use cases and CloudGuard FWaaS and cloud security products too. NSS Labs scored Check Point just behind Palo Alto in security effectiveness and ahead of Palo Alto in TCO. Check Point’s management features are among the best in the business, but SD-WAN capabilities are lagging.

    A firewall rule is the same on all systems, and I am very happy with the correlation and the display of the rules.

    From the logs, you can trace back to the rule with a click, which makes it easy to investigate cases. It is also easy to search the log.

    View full review »
    VR
    Lead Solution Advisor at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

    The application authentication feature of Check Point is the most valuable as it helps us keep users secure. 

    It works smoothly when managing clients' on-premise and cloud firewalls.

    View full review »
    JM
    Network Security Engineer/Architect at Euronext Technologies SAS

    The most valuable features are the

    • security blades 
    • ease of managing the policies, searching log for events, and correlating them.
    View full review »
    HA
    Analista de suporte at NTSec

    The management in Check Point is exceptional. The Smartconsole feature centralizes the management features, reports, log visualizing, rules, objects, et cetera.

    View full review »
    BS
    Security Manager at FPT

    I like the SmartEvent feature. When we see a threat, SmartEvent can create a rule for that. SmartEvent works with the SmartCenter to block a threat attack with a block monitor. The SmartCenter has the management for all the firewalls and data centers in a single dashboard.

    View full review »
    reviewer1489602 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Network Security Assurance Specialist at Visa Inc.

    I think the VSX has been the most valuable feature for us. We use it for tunnel management, which is great. The configuration has been quite straightforward.

    View full review »
    AJ
    Sr. Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

    The nicest feature is the centralized management of multiple firewalls. With the centralized management, we can easily use and operate multiple firewalls as well as create a diagram of them. 

    It has various features, like Threat Prevention and Antivirus. It is easier to use and have knowledge of a single device rather than multiple devices/technologies when doing an installation. It is also easy to use because of having Antivirus and Threat Prevention features within the same firewall.

    View full review »
    PJ
    Security Administrator at R Systems

    One of the most valuable features is the antivirus. It's very good.

    We also now support cascading objects. We didn't support this previously, but on Check Point we do.

    The dashboard is quite good, you can explore a lot of features there and it's easy to understand.

    It also gives us SSL inspection, which provides more effective mitigation of defects and data leakage.

    View full review »
    IT cloud network engineer - PeerSpot reviewer
    Junior Network Specialist - Cloud Operations Engineer at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees

    One of the most valuable features is the data center object integration with Azure. We are using Azure a lot and there is very nice synchronization between the objects in Azure, and it's very easy to implement rules using this feature.

    Other valuable features include: 

    • the VPN — it's quite easy to configure it and it provides us with an easy way to interconnect our sites.
    • the CLI, for automating things
    • it is very easy to manage, to make backups, and to configure
    • the support and the graphical user interface.
    View full review »
    GR
    Senior Network Security Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

    The SSL VPN with posture assessment helped us to remove the dedicated Standalone SSL VPN solution which was benefited both commercially and technically.

    Anti-Bots and IPS enabled security on the network traffic.

    Along with VPN and Proxy (Web and application control), we removed another standalone proxy for internal use and extended the content filtering to roaming users as well.

    The security posture assessment with two-factor authentication has saved more time and commercial costs by avoiding deploying having to deploy another solution.

    View full review »
    KK
    IT Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

    We like the centralized management for configuring multiple firewalls. It also gives us the Antivirus, threat prevention, and vulnerability tests. These four features protect the environment with security checks. Vulnerability tests allow us to configure changes that can protect the environment.

    View full review »
    MC
    Chester at Iocane

    Management integration is holistic as centralized management has been core to the solution for decades. Where other vendors have bolted management on over time, Check Point has always made it central to everything that they do.  

    I find that this is one of the most significant and valuable features of Check Point. In addition to that, many new features that eventually become the standard across the industry end up being first introduced by Check Point - sometimes years ahead (such as Threat Extraction which allows active content to be stripped from files being downloaded and a "clean" copy to be provided in near real-time, while sandbox inspection is being performed).

    View full review »
    LR
    Support Manager at Sefisa

    I do like that this solution is a very robust firewall.

    It's very stable. 

    The product is well supported. The solution is very scalable. 

    Technical support has been quite good. 

    View full review »
    ÜG
    Consultant at KoçSistem

    There are a lot of features that I have found valuable for our customers.

    For example, active/active and active/standby high availability features are very useful. If you want to share traffic loads to both cluster members, you can use the active/active feature, whereas if you don't want to share traffic loads then you can prefer active standby. Your connections sync on both cluster members for either highly available choice, so your connections never lost.

    One of the most valuable features is performance improvement, wherewith ClusterXL and CoreXL, you can improve performance.

    View full review »
    RG
    Solutions Lead at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

    My favorite feature is the UTM piece and that was the main reason we bought it. It helps us to fine tune the network. We use it to block certain websites, to block access to particular locations, such as in Singapore or say Malaysia, where we have offices. We keep the previous device updated and, based on that, we also have static MAC address binding.

    We also use the VPN services. The VPN features are mostly for our cloud connectivity and for our remote users to have local server access.

    View full review »
    reviewer1420545 - PeerSpot reviewer
    IT-Infrastruktur at Synthesa Chemie Ges.m.b.H

    The most valuable feature is the centralized management, which gives us control over all of the Check Point gateways. This means that you do not need to connect to each gateway and make the necessary changes.

    Cluster functionality, "ClusterXL", works like a charm. A rollover to the standby gateway does work with no noticeable delay in the network.

    You can buy a Check Point appliance or install the Check Point NGFW as a VM on your own hardware.

    The extremely wide function horizon covers almost every possible scenario.

    View full review »
    SS
    Network Security Consultant at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees

    The most valuable feature is the URL filtering. 

    It also gives us a single console for everything. Rather than having one device for URL filtering and a different device as a firewall, this gives us everything in one place.

    View full review »
    AK
    Sr. Network Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

    The most valuable features are its 

    • antivirus
    • threat detection
    • central management system. 

    The central management makes it easier, and is a time-saver, when implementing changes. We can do all the changes within Check Point and not use any third-party device.

    View full review »
    reviewer1266306 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Deputy Manager - Cyber Security at a transportation company with 5,001-10,000 employees

    The most valuable feature is that we are protected against zero-day threats.

    Everything can be managed from a single console.

    View full review »
    BK
    Supervisor of Network and Datacentre Operations at Manitoba eHealth

    All of the above mentioned.

    View full review »
    JC
    System Administrator at a tech services company

    The VPN side of it. Obviously without the VPN, we'd have tons of end users that wouldn't be able to connect to our environment.

    View full review »
    AR
    Firewall Administrator at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

    The most valuable feature is the central management system through the Security Management Server. Apart from that, the graphical user interface helps us to do things easily.

    View full review »
    TL
    IT Security Administrator at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

    The solution helps out in our security goals. It acts as a primary source of protection for threats from the internet and is great for data leakage protection.

    Most of the time, it's pretty stable. 

    We have all the features we want or need in this appliance. It's been good so far. 

    View full review »
    ND
    Associate Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

    It gives us centralized management for multiple firewalls. For example, if I want to push the same configuration to 10 firewalls, I can push it all at once with the help of the centralized management system.

    It is easy to use because it supports Linux language in the CLI. This is a good for someone who already knows Linux language.

    View full review »
    PD
    Associate Consult at Atos

    No other firewall provides a feature set in log monitoring and threat detection blades.

    Apart from it having very good features, I personally like the vulnerability assistance via report management which detects host and network vulnerability.

    Most customers need reports which define how many users are infected, how many viruses and malware there is, botnet traffic firewall deteted all this type of information. Check Point is in a very easy and understandable format based on logs history.

    View full review »
    TI
    Senior Network Security Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

    The product is flexible. I like the product’s performance and throughput.

    View full review »
    TR
    System Analyst at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

    The product offers excellent security. How open they are with new risks and new vulnerabilities is very helpful in the task of keeping our company safe from malicious attacks.

    Newer versions are much more stable.

    View full review »
    JB
    Founder Director at digisec

    The features that I have found most valuable are its flexibility and user interface. This is already a well-established product in the market for quite a long time, more than 20 years. They've got a huge customer base.

    View full review »
    AN
    Security Solution Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

    On the firewall side, the security efficacy is good. The interface for application filtering and application-based policies is also good. They have good roadmap on the cloud as well.

    View full review »
    SK
    Network Security Engineer at a consumer goods company with 201-500 employees

    This product is more secure than other firewalls, such as FortiGate.

    The information stored in the logs is very descriptive and includes a lot of details.

    The dynamic port features are better when compared to other firewalls.

    View full review »
    Oswaldo Gimeno - PeerSpot reviewer
    Network Engineer at Getronics

    The best part is that it is very intuitive. It is easy to configure, deploy, and maintain. If it works, it works.

    The troubleshooting: When you find something that is not working, it is very easy to check in the logs what is failing and fix it in a short time.

    The login tool is really nice.

    View full review »
    Sathish Babu - PeerSpot reviewer
    Solutions Consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

    The most valuable feature of the firewall is the packet inspection. That is an amazing feature from Check Point. Apart from that, we do have identity solutions which we use on a regular basis. Both are very good.

    View full review »
    reviewer1284540 - PeerSpot reviewer
    ICT-System-Specialist at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

    R80 management has improved and made the product more comfortable for IT people to use.

    Filtering through rules and finding similar ones to add additional objects becomes much faster.

    With an additional hotfix starting from R80.10, we are able to use the management with Ansible. From R80 on, we started creating objects via script or adding them to groups. That makes some parts “automatic”, or at least much faster.

    With the new SmartTask offered in R80.40, we will be happy to configure some automatic control-functions.

    View full review »
    AA
    Senior Network and Security Analyst at a pharma/biotech company with 11-50 employees

    Filtering. It filters unwanted traffic.

    View full review »
    BU
    System Security Engineer at Ziraat Teknoloji

    The most valuable features are IPS and Antivirus. 

    The Blades work fine and the performance optimization is great.

    View full review »
    RA
    Security Engineer at Tenece Professional services

    The feature we have found to be the most valuable is the management firewall. 

    View full review »
    DH
    Senior Network Engineer at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees

    The visibility and the logging are the most valuable features. Also, their interface is second to none. The best thing about it is the interface but it crashes too often. If it can stop crashing that would be great. 

    View full review »
    GD
    Senior Network Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

    The separate management feature of Check Point NGFW is very convenient.

    View full review »
    JV
    Engineer at CENACE

    I think the most valuable feature is that the application and configuration were easy for us. When we need to do some work with the networks, configuration and deploying are easy - if I want to search for information, it is easy in the Check Point platform.

    View full review »
    TH
    Network Engineer at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

    The interface and the IPS intrusion prevention are the most valuable features of this solution.

    It's pretty straightforward to use once you get your head around it. It's fairly straightforward to use. 

    View full review »
    CS
    Senior Technical Consultant at Ivalue Infosolution

    This is a feature-rich product and all of them are useful.

    The most valuable feature is the Stateful Inspection, which was developed by Check Point.

    The throughput is very good with Check Point. Checkpoint ThreatCloud is the largest threat intelligence database. 

    Checkpoint management is a single pane of glass from where you can manage all the CP solutions from a single point be it on-prem or cloud or hybrid.

    View full review »
    SJ
    Network Security Administrator at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

    Check Point has a lot of features. The ones I love are the 

    • antivirus
    • intrusion prevention 
    • data loss prevention. 

    Apart from that, there is central management through which we can integrate all the firewalls and support them. It makes it easy to manage all the firewalls.

    It's also user-friendly and not very complex. Anyone can use it and the dashboard is quite good.

    View full review »
    DmitryPavlukhin - PeerSpot reviewer
    Security Analyst at HOST

    AV, IPS, AntiSpam, Sandbox. That's gentlemen set for any basic security, and it was implemented very well. In our reports, the most exciting results belong to AV and IPS. It can be explained by using ThreatCloud - a global knowledge base, which accumulates signatures for all existing and new coming malware, and all the Check Point solutions are always up to date with potential threats. When we using sandbox with Sandblast agent, often there are not real-world exciting results, but when we show a solution in work with existing samples, it also shows good results. 

    View full review »
    FO
    Network Security Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

    Check Point NGFW is easy to configure.

    View full review »
    BG
    IT Operation Manager at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees

    The most valuable feature is the management using the Single Pane of Glass.

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    reviewer1281831 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Security and Network Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

    The rules are very easy to deploy and can be optimized pretty quickly. The R80 has a great feature on how the rules are processed, which costs less in terms of CPU and threads than it did before.

    The features that are integrated into the firewall are very useful for our everyday use. Examples of these are the log manager, the firewall monitor commands, and the Linux commands. These are all very useful and helpful.

    The VPN tunnels are easy to set up once you understand how they have to be configured.

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    DM
    General Manager at Qhawariy

    I like the facility of the product configuration. The ease with which the solution can be put into production makes it easy for my employers and for me to provide client support. 

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    Anupama Perera - PeerSpot reviewer
    Marketing at Bluechip Technical Services Pvt Ltd

    Check Point has strong security features as well as some decent monitoring and management capabilities.

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    GG
    Security Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

    The most valuable features about Check Point are the API and automation process.

    Using the GUI, you can add comments from your PC or the client server. If I want to check the firewall rules, I can send one line of command to determine if it is configured or not. 

    Its implementation and integration with the rest of the network are better than its competitors.

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    JV
    Engineer at CENACE

    It is easy to configure and it is a valuable antivirus protection. I especially like the IPS feature of this product.

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    MC
    Executivo de Negócios de TiC at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

    My customers cite performance and ease of configuration as two of the solution's most valuable features. 

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    DF
    Executive at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

    The most valuable features for us are the solution's identity awareness and intrusion prevention.

    The solution is very stable.

    We have found the solution to be scalable. 

    Technical support is very good.

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    it_user1364367 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Sales Engineer at Unistar

    The most valuable features are application control, regulation, and threat prevention.

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    JA
    Commercial Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

    It's a gateway and we can integrate some of their functionalities. It's a gateway for us to work with them. Compared to the previous solution we had - WatchGuard - Check Point really works.

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    EF
    General Manager with 51-200 employees

    The most valuable feature of Check Point NGFW is it is a complete solution for protecting not only the network but the applications. Additionally, it provides a hybrid cloud solution.

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    AS
    Co-founder & CTO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

    The firewall and IPS are the most valuable features of the solution. 

    View full review »
    Buyer's Guide
    Check Point NGFW
    April 2024
    Learn what your peers think about Check Point NGFW. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
    767,995 professionals have used our research since 2012.