Check Point SandBlast Network Reviews

We primarily use the solution for advanced threat protection. We use it for email security. 

The quality is very good. 

I really like the Excel and Secure Access features. 

The performance is quite good. 

We like that we can tune in on the firewalls. We can look at our CPU and tune the firewalls.

The technology is impressive in general. 

It is scalable. 

Technical support is decent. 

They need to improve the GUI interface. It should be easier to configure.

The initial setup can be a bit complex. 

It could be a bit cheaper in terms of price.  

I've used the solution for two to three years. I haven't really used it for that long. 

It is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is easy to scale. It's not a problem to expand. Check Point is known for its ability to scale. 

We have three or four clients using the product.

The technical support is fine. We haven't had any issues with them. I can open a ticket if I need to, and most of the engineers are good. Sometimes it needs to be escalated to more knowledgeable engineers, however. 

The solution is not straightforward to set up. It is a little bit complex. 

In our last project, we did a migration, not a straight new deployment. It tends to take two to three months to migrate. 

In the deployment, we needed two or three gateways, and we needed a security management server. We deployed via a cluster. 

In our project, we had one or two engineers handling the deployment. 

I'm a system integrator. I can assist clients with the initial setup. 

The solution requires a license. That tends to be a yearly subscription. It could be cheaper. I'd describe the pricing as not cheap and yet not overly expensive either. 

I'm an integrator. We are using the latest version of the solution. 

I'd recommend the solution to other users.

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate the solution at an eight. We are happy with its capabilities. 

We have the Check Point SandBlast TE100X device private cloud sandbox.

We use sandboxing to scan files in our network. The unknown file will reach the security gateway, the gateway will check for the verdict in the cache, and if not found, it holds the file while the security gateway sends it to SandBlast.

We have enabled four images and depending upon the results of SandBlast, it will determine a verdict that will be given to the security gateway. At this point, the gateway will allow or deny the file and save the results in cache for future reference.

Before using sandblast, we were relying only on the firewall for protection against threats. Like all antivirus solutions, IPS antibot is signature-based protection and we can only upgrade the signatures on daily basis.

But, with SandBlast, we are getting almost instant protection for new threats as well. We now scan all of the incoming files and unknown threats are handled by SandBlast. We can even extract the malicious content from files or block the file outright.

SandBlast can also work as Email APT & can remove malicious content from the email body. It can even block the same & notify the user regarding the event.

The most valuable feature is comprehensive threat prevention, whether signature-based or a zero-day secure network. This is the key benefit & the Check Point SandBlast Network does its job up to the mark.

The file formats most used by industry are all in the list that can be emulated.

Threat extraction can help us to remove malicious content from documents by converting them to PDF.

Visibility is the key to all these efforts & SandBlast done its job. We can even have a video during emulation of what exactly happens when we open the file.

The Static Analysis feature works without using much processing power to analyze files, which helps us to conserve resources.

In Check Point SandBlast, improvement has to be made with respect to the GUI.

The problem we face is due to log queue files, which were being delivered with a delay.

All details should be provided on the smart dashboard and made easier to use. For example, it should display what file it is currently emulating, how many files are currently in the queue, and how much time each file is taking.

There should be an option to flush the queue in case of any issues. Similarly, we should be able to remove particular files from the queue on demand.

Also, policy creation can be more simplified or we can say more specific to particular traffic.

I have been working with the Check Point SandBlast Network for the last two years.

This product is stable enough.

As of now, it is great and there have been no issues observed regarding scalability.

Check Point TAC is always very supportive.

Previously, we were not using any APT solution.

Initially, we had to install all images for emulation, which was tough to understand.

We deployed using an in-house team.

We have evaluated McAfee.

Our company sells Check Point products. We give our customers support on these products. We use it here in our company, but mainly we give support to our customers who are using the product.

Our clients use it for improving the security in their environment. We are also using it to improve our security. 

We are using this solution extensively. It is available all the time for any file that we download.

We have some on-premise equipment that goes to the cloud.

When our workers are downloading software, SandBlast Cloud is useful to emulate the downloads that the workers are doing. Then, there are no threats coming into the company.

We have never had a case of a virus entering our company in computer. I think we are safe because of this solution. One of the features of the Check Point product, SandBlast Cloud, is that it prevents the downloading of malicious files.

The mostly useful feature is we can download a file and emulate it outside of our company, then we can get the file and know that the file is clean. It's safe to run inside our company and we have no risk of viruses, Trojans, and so on.

I would like if it could emulate bigger files and somehow improve this usability. I don't know if this would be possible. However, if it was able to scan or emulate bigger files, then it would be safer for a company using it.

About two years.

It is very stable. We don't have many problems regarding this aspect. Most of the tickets that we receive are doubts about the configuration and feature improvements.

It is scalable. We can just add more computers into the solution if the equipment becomes obsolete or their capacity reaches its maximum. We just need to use a bigger appliance. However, we have no experiences regarding this, as usually the equipment is better than the customer's needs.

In my company, there are maybe 50 users. It's not a very big company, so everyone has their function, but most of them are technicians. Other users are sellers, directors, supervisors, and security analysts (like me). If we consider that every worker has one computer, we can say that there are about 50 computers using this solution.

It has very good support. If I had to give them a score from zero to 10, I would give them a nine. Sometimes it takes a bit too long for them to give the first answer. It's not something that we can't wait for, but sometime we will need that answer right in the moment that we ask, and maybe we are waiting some hours depending on the issue.

None.

With some of our customers, I have been involved in the initial setup. It is very simple and intuitive. With just a few clicks, we can make it work.

After the system is running, just to enable each of the features, we take no more than 10 minutes.

I just followed the Check Point documentation. I just read and replicated it into our production environment, then it was good to go.

About five of my colleagues are responsible for implementing the product.

I haven't evaluated other solutions.

I am very satisfied with this product.

Anyone who deploys this solution needs to understand their network, e.g., the amount of data transferring through it. This way, they can define the product according to their needs.

I would rate this solution as a 10 out of 10.

Our primary use case is using it to virtualize environments or create a sandbox in which we can use it to test malware.

• The forensics reports
• The ability to sandbox malware.

Using it in the beginning was difficult because I had never used anything similar. In terms of navigating the UI, it was all not too bad, but there is definitely a learning curve. If I had gone through additional training, it would have been helpful.

It seems scalable.

It seems scalable.

I have not yet used technical support.

We were not using another vendor previously.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

The third-party partner handled most of the setup. We observed, and they taught us the basics. Our experience was very good.

Try it out. Demo it. See it in use was helpful.

I have been involved in giving input and feedback with the product to the company.

Our customers use this solution because it takes an .exe and applications, then scans them. So, it is good threat protection.

It saves time with us trying to do the analysis. We use it to try to find out how something got into the network. We use it to stop something before it ever gets in.

It saves everyone the time of trying to be reactive. Instead, they are proactive by trying to prevent an issue.

I imagine there will be improvements in later versions. There are hotfixes that come out all the time.

We haven't had any issues with stability. 

I have used Check Point's technical support, but not for this product. Their overall technical support is a ten out of ten. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten because it helps us be proactive as opposed to reactive. 

I would advise someone considering this solution to talk to their sales engineers (SEs) and do comparative testing between the hardware of the products.

We are a reseller, so we implement this solution for our customers.

The Check Point product is very common in Brazil.

The zero-day protection is its most valuable feature. 

I would like for them to improve the visibility in the product.

Scalability has been a problem for some of the bigger Brazilian financial companies that we work with. However, it has been okay for the smaller companies. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate their technical support as a six. 

In Brazil, we have new threats every year. When we learned about a new threat, we knew that we needed to do something different. Before having a big problem, we decided to invest in Check Point.

The initial setup is simple, not complex.

We implement this solution for our customers. We do it by ourselves.

When we look at vendors, we start with Check Point because we have been using them for many years. Therefore, the product is very familiar to us.

I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

I would advise someone considering this solution to do a proof of concept before adopting the solution. In order to avoid problems, it's important to test it before proceeding.

We use the Threat Emulation blade feature on the Security Gateway.

It has caught some harmful attachments and downloads.

The most valuable feature is that attachments to emails and downloads from the web are being emulated in the cloud. We see some malicious downloads and attachments, but it is not a lot. I am thinking about enabling the Threat Extraction blade now.

Most of the time stability is okay, but sometimes, we're not able to contact the cloud. It won't last for long. The product could be faster. Other than that, the stability is okay.

We don't have any problems with scalability. It depends on the bandwidth because we are talking to the cloud.

We don't use technical support directly. We work with our partners, and only if it's a big problem do we deal with Check Point directly. The techs contact me directly.

In the beginning, Check Point was just a firewall. It is much more than that now. We have been using the product for over 20 years.

The initial setup was straightforward, but we had some technical issues. It was something to do with the release that we were using. So, we had to do some patching. After a few weeks of tuning, it was okay.

We implemented through our partner, SecureLink, or I did the implementation myself. During the implementation phase, there were some issues and we received some help from the technical support at Check Point.  

SecureLink is a good company. They acquired a smaller company, which was our partner. 

Our ROI is confidence in knowing that things out there that we didn't know about before are being stopped.

We would like to try the Threat Extraction blade, but you need to buy a license. Check Point is expensive.

I would like to buy things, but I would need the funding. There is room for improvement here.

We have also looked at Palo Alto and Fortinet. At this point, we know the Check Point product and have a history with it. The management part of Check Point's product is very good.

I was involved in the decision-making process from the technical side.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. It is not a ten simply because nothing is perfect. 

I would advise someone considering this solution to get a Threat Emulation license and try it out.

Check Point is our main perimeter firewall vendor. We have several Check Point clusters doing different things within our environment.

We didn't really have any IPS before. So, Check Point has improved our security posture. People get used to doing things certain ways, which might not be the best or most secure way, and they can't do that now, which just requires more education of the user base. With the endpoint client, we've started to use Check Point for remote access.

Check Point met all of our criteria that we were looking for in a firewall vendor as far as remote access capabilities, as far as IPS and intrusion detection, the SandBlast and the threat extraction pieces that we were looking at to help limit our attack vectors. They're top rated and have been for a long time. Those were all important things that we were looking at when we were looking at replacing what we currently had with Check Point. 

The number one thing that's a little bit frustrating is we implement two-factor authentication for remote access. We thought we were going to be able to pick users or groups to do two-factor against, and some did not do two-factor against. We found out that we can only do that either in the mobile access blade in which we can have it all do two-factor or not, and then the remote VPN all do two-factor or not. For our own internal employees, I want them to have an option to either do clientless or client depending on the situation.

One of the main reasons why we picked Check Point was because we needed a clientless option for third-parties who don't have our hardware. Check Point is not doing two-factor authentication for that. This is something that we've been really asking about and we'd like to be able to do: Two-factor authentication off blade based groups (or something else). We know it is on the roadmap.

We put in high availability clusters and had zero downtime, even with upgrades. It's been rock solid, we're very pleased. It hasn't been disruptive to the business.

We're small. The new Maestro option is impressive. It is nice to know that we could move into this Maestro product and move away from an Active-Passive firewall cluster to an Active-Active, then if we needed it for computer bandwidth, we could easily add something. That is very awesome.

We have premium support currently. Several times a month, I call them to ask them stuff. Some of it is not necessarily because I have a problem, but being very new to Check Point, Check Point does things differently than other firewall vendors, so there is a learning curve if you're not used to the way Check Point does things. We use support for that as well, making sure that we're doing things right. 

My experience with them has been good. There have been a couple of things that we've tried where we read through the documentation, and we were really looking for some help in implementing, and technical support wanted me to try it first, then call them if it breaks. It would be nicer if they would hold my hand a bit more. It makes me nervous in production, as I don't have a lab.

We replaced our Cisco ASAs with our Check Points. Our version of the Cisco ASA was at end of life, and we would have needed to move to the next-generation of it.

I was the decision-maker. Our company also has some security teams, software teams, an operations team, and a service desk.

We used a partner for the integration. We used CBTS. We've had a partnership with them, not for just what we've done for Check Point, but with several other products that we've bought over the years, and they've been a good partner. I don't really have any complaints with them.

We have seen our return on investment, and I think our security guys would agree with that. It's opened up the eyes of the security, and even the organization, regarding risks to say, “Wow, there is really a lot of stuff going on that we didn't know about.”

We looked at the gamut of products out there, since there are a lot of firewall players. However, Cisco has consistently been in the top for a long time.

We also looked at Cisco and Palo Alto. We looked at what the NGFW Cisco ASAs looked like.

Nothing is perfect, but Check Point is pretty close to perfect. Check Point is an anomaly in the industry as they only do security. They have been doing this for 25 years and are a pillar of what they do. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. It consistently performs well, and independent third-parties agree. They are really good at what they do.