Check Point NG[s]AI

Security is seldom simple. Over the years , companies have done an excellent job of mandating that security and privacy be transparent to users in the name of productivity. Some of us long for a simpler time when security response wasn t measured in minutes and availability wasn t measured in milliseconds .

With the rise in the number and complexity of vulnerabilities and attacks, security professionals must defend their systems against more threats, more quickly than ever before. Check Point has produced a solution, which makes it possible for these goals to be achieved in organizations both small and large. Check Point s Simple Management Architecture (which has been mimicked, but never replicated) has been heralded for its ease-of-use and flexibility since its inception a decade ago.

Effective management alone, however, was not enough to make Check Point the industry standard. Security must be of foremost concern when deciding on a firewall platform and Check Point has best balanced security with the ever-changing business needs of companies over time. Providing the highest level of security without sacrificing performance has been a cornerstone of Check Point s success.

Check Point also created the Open Platform for Security (OPSEC) consortium. This allows the capabilities of the firewall to be extended to hundreds of other solutions to meet the unique needs of each organization in a fully supported and certified manner. This also provides choice to companies who do not want to be locked into a certain vendor or product. Covering the 350+ partners who integrate with Check Point is well beyond the scope of any book; however, we will cover the methods that are used to extend the Check Point solution so you can better understand the interoperability.

Within this book we will cover the basic concepts of security and how to configure a simple firewall all the way to some very advanced VPN scenarios.

This book is written by experts in the field as well as certified instructors to give the depth desired by the most advanced users, but also to allow even the most basic administrator to learn the do s and don ts of security. The ultimate goal of this book is to instruct you on the capabilities and configurations of Check Point s product line. As each chapter builds on the previous ones, it covers not only the basics of Check Point VPN-1/FireWall-1, but also the new features introduced in Check Point Next Generation with Application Intelligence R54, which provides proactive attack protection with SmartDefense. For the most complex and advanced configuration scenarios outside the scope of this book, many of the authors have also contributed to the already best-selling Check Point NG VPN-1/FireWall-1 Advanced Configuration and Troubleshooting (Syngress Publishing, ISBN: 1-931836-97-3).

We all hope you will find this book useful as both a learning tool and reference guide as you use the software 93% of the Global Fortune 100 use to secure their networks.

”Chris Tobkin , Technical Editor and Contributor Check Point Certified Security Professional: CCSA, CCSE, CCSE+, CCSI Security Engineer, Check Point Software Technologies, Ltd.