Check Point Security Management Reviews

We use Check Point Security Gateway GAIA R 80.40 as our secure gateway firewall. We have configured two gateways as active-passive in cluster mode. We also use R 80.40 as our security management server to configure the policies on the firewall. We use it primarily to control traffic and secure our network perimeter against unknown attacks. The different rules and policies for the SSL VPN connections are configured on the mobile access blade. We use the policies to segregate and filter the traffic flow. 

Check Point Security Management GAIA R 80.40 tremendously helped us in securing our network perimeter against various threats. 

We have used the access rules and application/URL filtering blades to filter and restrict unwanted traffic. 

The IPS blade, Antivirus blade, Anti-bot blade, Threat Emulation blade, and Threat Prevention blades are helping us tremendously in preventing attacks and thus take care of the threats at the gateways themselves. 

At the time of COVID, the Mobile Access blade has helped greatly in the smooth running of production.

We have found all the security blades very helpful. The IPS blade, Antivirus blade, Anti-bot blade, Threat Emulation blade, and Threat Prevention blades have been most useful in securing the network. 

With the antivirus, IPS, and Anti-bot blades signatures being automatically updated regularly on a daily/hourly basis, the network is always safe. 

The URL and Application Filter blade offers a daily update of the database which helps us control the traffic. 

Mobile access has helped us cater to more than 4000 users so that they can work from home.

The Security Management server could be improved. If it provided an inbuilt authenticator for multifactor authentication, that would be ideal. Currently, we have to depend on a third party for multifactor authentication. 

It would help us greatly in securing the remote access users if Mac binding can be done for remote access VPN users in mobile. It would be helpful if we could enable URL and application traffic control remote access. 

The logging and reporting are good, but it would be helpful if more report templates were available.

I have been using Check Point Security Gateway for more than 7 years.

The stability is great.

The scalability is great.

Technical support is good.

Positive

The company has been using Check Point for a long time. It's been more than 10 years. I have been with the company for past 7 Years.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We had assistance from our Vendor Team (ISecurenet). They are very good.

Our ROI has been above expectations.

The price is high but worth it.

Check Point is one of the top leaders in security solutions.

We use Check Point Multi-Domain Management (Provider-1) to manage several customers with their firewalls as well as handle our internal administrators based on their rights.

Each domain (CMA) contains the customer's firewalls that are managed by us. Bigger customers with more than one domain use global objects as well as global rules so that administrators do not have to implement a local object for each domain.

Since this environment is bigger, we also use a dedicated log server for each domain. That way the logs reside in a different virtual log server.

When using global rules and objects it is possible to push changes to several domains at the same time without touching each individually.

Administration of all users within a single environment makes it easy, instead of connecting to management individually. Using templates for rights helps a lot too.

Last but not least, by only using one VM (or 2 if you include the log server), upgrading and patching are easier. You have a bigger maintenance window, but do not have to upgrade several Security Management Servers by themselves.

Using a single GUI with a single management IP makes things easier if you have to administrate several customers. In the Multi-Domain Environment, you are able to see an overview of all the different customers.

Several health checks are shown for the gateways in an overview so you don't always have to use a monitoring system in parallel since you see some states at a glance after logging in.

Having the possibility to use Smart Event to check for threats on a broader scale helps after a security incident and also makes it easier to check - instead of looking through different logs.

Troubleshooting is quite complicated within multi-domain management. If an issue arises, the local administrator has to keep in mind that there are other domains that could be also affected.

For each version, you have to download a new GUI. Sometimes the GUIs have fixes in them. If you need a new one, you have to inform and update all administrators too.

Some features still use the legacy GUI, however, as far as I know, it is planned to include this in newer versions (R81+). 

Unfortunately, there is still not a rule checker in place where you can insert SRC/DST/Port and it shows you which rule it matches.

I've used the solution for over 10 years.

The solution can scale, depending on the VM environment.

The installation process is quite easy.

Throughout my professional career I have operated, implemented, and designed solutions with Checkpoint's NGFW for clients of all kinds - public and private, small and large.

For all scenarios, there is a suitable solution with this manufacturer. Its decades of experience make it one of the undisputed leaders in the industry.

In recent times, the platform has evolved significantly to meet the latest threats. I would recommend at least valuing it as an option whenever an opportunity arises to cover cybersecurity needs.

Having a central point to manage all its capabilities makes it much easier to react quickly and accurately to a threat, which is essential in this day and age where attacks can be lethal to our network if not dealt with quickly.

I have actively participated in the defense of very important customers who were able to overcome the challenge thanks to the great visibility that the console offered them. The other additional capabilities that we can integrate into the platform are also a very important added value.

One of the features that attract me the most is being able to activate different functionalities through its blades, having centralized point access to all of them, and being able to activate and deactivate them as needed.

In addition, the fact that everything starts from the same unified management console makes it very easy to integrate new equipment or functionalities once the operator has become familiar with it, as everything will follow similar management or operation mechanisms.

This is one of the aspects I value the most.

In my experience, the place they can improve the most is in the technical support where I have had some serious problems that could not be solved in time due to a lack of knowledge of the assigned engineer.

It would be a good policy to try to assign senior engineers when it has been verified that an incident is critical and urgent for a client and not to resort to less-experienced technicians that can put at risk the recovery of the attacked assets.

Apart from that, at the architectural level, it is a very competent and versatile solution.

I've used the solution for more than 15 years.

Overall, it is a very mature and stable solution.

With the arrival of Quantum Maestro, the platform's expansion capabilities have increased tremendously. Its new architecture is promising.

In general, they work very well, however, it should be prioritized and they need to assign senior technicians when the issue has been verified that it is very critical for the customer.

Due to working in an international MSSP, I have worked and continue to work with all manufacturers.

We always try to do the implementation work with our own SOC of experts.

It depends a lot on each case and on the customer's needs and capabilities.

It's not the cheapest solution, but one of the most advanced and competent.

We always evaluate alternatives and try to see what fits the client best. Fortinet, PaloAlto, Checkpoint, Cisco, et cetera.

We use the solution for a distributed lean IT environment where there's a need to monitor logs, threats, and events, or requires configuring security policies within a single dashboard.

It's great for customers who are searching for an upgraded top to bottom yet simple and improved log management solution. In such cases, Check Point Management works perfectly.

Wherever we have provided such a solution, it has become very easy for IT administrators to manage not only a single location but also geographically distributed workplaces.

It works similarly to other management software in the industry, but Check Point is far beyond all others due to its management log monitoring functionality.

After integration with the R80 series, Check Point has made most organizations become relatively secure as configuration with security policies, IPS, and log management extend to the maximum ability.

Previously, we needed to monitor all logs related to network traffic and threats and had to audit logs in different dashboards which sometimes felt time and memory consuming.

With the R80 management consoles, all tasks become very easy - starting from gateway management, log monitoring, IPS configuration, global properties configuration, etc.

Some of the great aspects of the solution include:

1. Smart Event is a great feature of the Check Point management console. It gives a complete graphical view of more than a year of traffic flow including botnet traffic, malicious host present in-network, compromised hosts, and many more.

2. Object (based on IP, hostname, domain name) configuration.

3. Application and URL filtering configuration.

4. Log monitoring and alert configuration.

5. IPS configuration with improved performance.

6. Applying filters based on source, destination, port, application, etc. which is easy compared to all other vendors in the market.

7. Managing clustering for gateways - including their live health check performance - can be done on the dashboard itself.

8. The SSL VPN monitoring based on users and tunnel monitoring are great value-added features present in the management console.

The solution could be improved in these ways:

1. In order to work the management console properly we're required to have more memory and CPU on the system where we need to install a setup.

2. Due to the large size of logs generated for daily traffic, even when old logs purging is enabled, we need to delete old logs manually or else it causes errors while publishing policies which slow down the process.

3. SD-WAN functionality could be added.

4. The required license addition for every blade is a bit of a complicated task for normal IT admins to understand.

I've used the solution for more than four years.

Stability is always improving day by day with Hotfixes they are releasing.

We can scale up to a maximum limit.

The technical support is very knowledgeable.

We have good relations with Check Point. This is the main reason we have always preferred it. The technical support offered by Check Point is always a top priority.

Customer from Sophos to Check Point and ASA to Check Point has migrated to our centralized management from Check Point.

The initial setup is straightforward, however, it can get a little complex for migration from another vendor to Check Point.

We had the assistance of vendor support during the implementation.

Check Point licenses work very differently compared to other vendors. We need to purchase each blade in order to make it work, but we can easily obtain a trial (evaluation) license from Check Point to get visibility for the blade.

Check Point tries to maintain relationships with customers and they try to match their price with customer expectations.

Palo Alto is most preferred NGFW compared to Check Point, due to having a large market share.

I work for one of the biggest Australian banks that rely on Check Point firewalls for security enforcement across several points in the infrastructure environment.

The Security Management platform is a key component for our operation, in that it enables efficient central management for configuration and security troubleshooting. This centralised component facilitates and adds value to our daily operations, creating a single place for configurations and a platform that can present security logs that are used for the troubleshooting of security issues.

Check Point Security Management improved the speed at which security access permissions are granted across our environment through its centralized and easy-to-use nature. The possibility of re-using objects across different policies and also having the drag and drop capabilities are great. 

Moreover, having one single platform managing multiple firewalls reduces the time (and cost) of the provisioning of infrastructure services. This boosts the productivity and efficiency of teams across the board.

The Check Point Security Management platform provides a central location for the management of domains and firewalls in the environment. The nature of the product brings valuable returns to the operation, increasing efficiency when configuring and troubleshooting.

The intuitive interface also allows new team members to adapt to the technology if they are not familiar with it initially. It doesn't take much for one to familiarize themselves with the product.

Another great feature is to have available logs in a central location, enabling the troubleshooting of security issues anywhere in the environment.

One possible improvement for the platform would be the import of security policies via CSV or CLI. Even though the platform is simple, and creating security policies is a fairly quick task, creating a bulk of policies at once (ie. for a migration) could be a useful tool. This is probably possible through scripting, however, having an easy-to-use "import CSV" button would be beneficial.

Another feature that could be improved is the export of configurations to CSV. This is often useful to map current firewall policies or NATs. I understand that this feature is available currently, but would CSV bring objects with names (but not IPs) and groups (but not the members). The improvement of this feature would surely be welcomed.

I have been using Check Point Security Management for around 4 years.

The most recent software versions are very stable and trouble-free.

We have a very good impression of it so far. The possibility of adding firewalls to the fleet and keep a central management point makes it simple to grow the operation.

The experience with the Check Point Professional Services team, and TAC, couldn't be better. The team that works with my organization is extremely knowledgeable and is always willing to go the extra mile in order to find the best possible solution for any kind of goal we need to achieve. The TAC team is also always helpful and provides us with many valuable inputs in hard times. 

I have used different solutions from other vendors, but not on the exact same places. The Check Point Security Management platform was mostly used alongside others.

Perhaps because I lack experience setting it up from scratch, the initial setup seemed quite complex.

We had a vendor team assist with the setup.

Overall, the ROI is great. It is a solid and easy-to-use platform that adds a huge value that justifies every penny.

I most definitely recommend this platform when it comes to cost. The available list of add-ons creates great flexibility to the technology and is also easy on the budget - since you only pay for the features you use.

This is not applicable to my role.

As part of the Bank's Network Security Infrastructure team, it is our responsibility to manage different security products and devices that lay the foundation of the Bank's Security Infrastructure Network. Part of that responsibility also includes the implementation and policy update requests arising from different business and support teams to make sure that application services comply with the security standards to protect all services of the bank and maintain the reliability of the services across an environment.

With a centralized Check Point Security Management solution, it makes it easier for our day-to-day operations to manage all Security Gateway Firewalls across the bank. 

The Check Point Security Management has improved the management of all our Security Check Point Gateway Firewalls across the bank. 

With Security Management we are able to simplify our response and support for all our security network devices, which, compared to other products that need to be managed individually, the Check Point solution is far better and less daunting. 

The Security Management also includes the management of logs far that are more efficient, as it provides all the needed information required to investigate and understand how the gateways are accepting or blocking traffic. 

The Main Domain Log Management Server is what I find to be the most valuable feature for the Security Management of our environment. With the Main Domain Log Management Server, support teams are able to check and verify the information required to determine if any traffic is getting blocked or denied due to specific policy rule implementation. It can even identify any traffic getting spoofed or any other related events on the gateways. It has a central management log server that helps us to easily identify faults and issues in the environment, especially during outages and incidents during the implementation of policy rules.

It would be great if the SmartView Monitor could become integrated into the SmartView Console Platform. As it stands, it will still open the old R77 SmartView monitor session, which is a bit flaky and slow. If the SmartView monitor could be integrated into the R80.40 and R81 versions, that would be great. It would help us in unpacking the trends and graphs and see how traffic is observed when hitting the different Check Point Firewall Gateways that the Security Management controls. It will help support teams to identify capacity limitations and have oversight into what's happening in the environment at any given point in time.

I've been using the solution for one year.

The solution is very stable and manageable as there's a centralized management server that takes care of the rest of the Check Point Gateways across our infrastructure.

The solution is very scalable since you can increase the number of gateways in your infrastructure and still manage them in just one centralized SmartView Console.

The technical support team is very knowledgeable and supportive of all our issues and incidents in the bank. Their expertise and reliability are what bring the products of Check Point under complete lifecycle support, which aims to maintain our infrastructure reliability and stability.

At the moment, we have a co-existing infrastructure with other security network devices, and we can definitely see the benefit of having the Check Point Security Management application in our infrastructure.

The setup and operational management of Security Management is very easy. This helps us to train people quickly in terms of managing our bank infrastructure in order to maintain reliability and stability in the network.

We have a professional service provider that implements the solution and he is very knowledgeable in terms of his expertise of the product. I would rate our professional service provider to be a 9 out of 10.

I would advise others that it's definitely a great investment to have. It's great to have Security Management across your infrastructure. 

We have other options with other vendors such as Juniper, with their Security Director, and JSpace, but nothing can compare with how Check Point Security Management performs.

If you have a manageable security infrastructure, the cost, pricing, or licensing will be far outweighed by the reliability and stability. It's great in terms of what a properly managed environment can bring.

As part of the Bank's Network Security Infrastructure team, it is our responsibility to manage different security products and devices that lay the foundation of the Bank's Security infrastructure network. Part of that responsibility also includes the implementation and policy update request arising from different business and support teams to make sure that application services comply with the security standards to protect all services of the bank and maintain reliability of the services across environment.

With a centralized Check Point Security Management solution, it makes it easier for our day-to-day operations to manage all Security Gateway Firewalls across the bank.

The Check Point Security Management has improved the management of all our Security Check Point Gateway Firewalls across the bank. 

With Security Management we are able to simplify our response and support for all our security network devices, which, compared to other products that need to be managed individually, the Check Point solution is far better and less daunting. 

The Security Management also includes the management of logs that is far more efficient, as it provides all the needed information required to investigate and understand how the gateways are accepting or blocking traffic from the gateways.

The Main Domain Log Management Server is what I find to be the most valuable feature for the Security Management of our environment. 

With the Main Domain Log Management Server, support teams are able to check and verify the information required in order to determine if any traffic is getting blocked or denied due to specific policy rule implementation, or even identify any traffic getting spoof or any other related events on the gateways. 

It has a central management log server that helps us to easily identify faults and issues in the environment, especially during outages and incidents during the implementation of policy rules.

It would be great if the SmartView Monitor could become integrated into the SmartView Console Platform. As it stands, performing a smart view monitor will still open the old R77 SmartView monitor session, which is a bit flaky and slow. If the SmartView monitor can be integrated in the R80.40 and R81 versions, that would be ideal in understanding the trends and graphs of how traffic is observed hitting the different Check Point Firewall Gateways that the Security Management controls. It will also help support teams to identify capacity limitations and have a foresight of what's happening in the environment at any given point in time.

I've been using the solution for 4 Years.

The solution is ideal for use and deployment in a large infrastructure environment.

The solution is very efficient. You can add more gateways in the environment and manage on the same management server as it has a centralized design.

We have diamond support and they are very helpful and detailed during explanations for any issues we are facing. The diamond support that we get definitely provides full life cycle support. It brings reliability to the product when you have great support from Check Point.

At the moment, we have a co-existing infrastructure with other security network devices, and we can definitely see the benefit of having the Check Point Security Management application in our infrastructure.

The setup was straightforward as the SmartConsole associated with the Security Management is GUI-friendly and anyone can easily access and manage it.

One of the Professional Service members we work with is very attentive to detail and ready to support our team during difficult times - including the implementation and consultation of the Check Point Products. The professional service on offer is really great as you do not often get someone from a vendor that knows the inside and out of the product dedicated to your own infrastructure.

I would advise others that it's definitely a great investment to have Security Management across your infrastructure.

We have other options with other vendors such as Juniper, with their Security Director, and JSpace, but nothing can compare with how the Check Point Security Management performs.

If you have a manageable security infrastructure, the cost, pricing, or licensing will be far outweighed by the reliability and stability of how a properly managed environment is.

We are using it on the cloud for cloud segmentation and as a VPN for users. We have been implementing Checkpoint on Azure's cloud for configuring scale sets for internal and external firewalls and as a gateway group active/standby for the VPN. The solution is implemented using a Multiple Entry Point feature. This allows us to use the same URL deplyed for all users and let them connect to the nearest node. We use other features like IPS, Threat Control, and Antivirus/Antibot for protecting our servers. We wanted to implement the SCV feature but it's not working. We've been working with support for months without a resolution.

It has allowed global worldwide access to our cloud infrastructure. It gives us the possibility to improve security on the Azure cloud as well. 

It features NGFW provided by checkpoint with all of the capabilities that are required to protect for Next Generation protection from attacks at perimeter level The module and security features that are provided as part of the base license with Checkpoint include the VPN, IPS, Application Control, and Content Awareness which offers strong protection for the organization. The main problem is that the support in terms of solving any issue is not very good.

The unique management using Smart Console for all Firewalls is very useful. Also, the management of policies and the log page allows for easy troubleshooting and configuration using a single pane of glass. The new release R81 allows a very fast installation of policies on the firewalls.

The MEP feature had a lot of problems during the implementation, needing configuration of TXT file via the CLI, however, at the end of the implementation, it is working well and has given us a very good advantage on the VPN solution in our company. I hope to see other useful features in the next release.

I've found the solution was a bit unstable. It would be better to improve the stability of the service. Another thing that needs to be improved is the Checkpoint support. Very often they were not able to solve the problems that we had. Sometimes to solve problems you need to install a new Hotfix or Custom release - and that can generate some side effects that can create instability problems. It's necessary to improve the support - especially the one that is provided in India.

We had done an upgrade 2 months ago.

It's improving with new releases.

It's very scalable.

The experience has not been very good.

Yes, we were using on-prem products with Cisco Anyconnect VPN solutions. We switched to Checkpoint and moved the VPN solution to the cloud.

Yes, it was a bit complex.

We had a good level of expertise, and we also used Checkpoint professional services directly.

We hope to have ROI in 3 years.

Licensing is very granular. You can easily select the best solution and feature that fits to you.

We did not evaluate other options.

They should improve the support and the stability of the system. When there are issues, it is not very easy to solve problems using the support they offer. Other vendors like Cisco have better support. This is very important for Enterprise companies - even more than new features.