Check Point enhances its UTM-1 appliances with zero-hour protection 14 February, 2008 By Vanessa Ho

PromoPipeline Exclusive Channel Promotions Find Out How You Can Make Money Today! ENROLL FREE! >> Underpromising William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels Services: I Can See Clearly Now Beth Vanni - Amazon Consulting Cutting the margin so many times William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels The Sign of Success - High Maintenance William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels Question for the Times: Build or Resell? Gary Bixler - AMD

"We wanted to make sure we were not just releasing check box type functionality but took time to understand what the real needs were for messaging security and provide a solution," said Paul Kaspian, project manager with Check Point.

Check Points messaging security platform in UTM-1 includes e-mail intrusion prevention technologies combined with multi-layered defense against spam and viruses. Anti-spam technologies include advanced pattern detection to detect image-based and foreign language spam, and IP-based reputation scoring to catch newly emerging attacks like PDF spam and MP3 spam. Kaspian said that the new platform blocks 97 per cent of all spam and there less than one in a million false positives. Additionally, Check Point messaging security also offers multi-layered anti-virus with both signature-based protection against known threats as well as zero-day protection to block attacks as they occur and before a signature is available.

The built-in zero-hour protection capability recognizes new malware and viruses by outbreak patterns, message type and quantity and IP address that offer critical protection within the first two minutes of an attack. The new zero-hour protection augments signature-based anti-virus to provide a second layer of protection against viruses and malware.

Other features of the new Check Point UTM-1 include block listing, which provides users the ability to customize a list that denies obvious email offenders and allows trusted senders as a first line of defense.

Partners can benefit from these new enhancements, said Kaspian, as they can go to their existing customers to help them replace their antiquated messaging security gateways with an integrated solution.

In addition to adding messaging security and zero-hour protection to its UTM-1 appliances and VPN-1 UTM software, Check Point also introduced Check Point Endpoint Security 7.0, the first integrated endpoint security solution that combines firewall, anti-virus (provided by Kaspersky), anti-spyware, network access control (NAC) and secure remote access in a dedicated, centrally managed client.

"Endpoint security has transitioned to a single client, so it's a natural transition to add anti-virus to endpoint firewall," said Gaurav Marwaha, product marketing manager of endpoint security products with Check Point. "Administrators want fewer clients to manage on their endpoint."

Endpoint Security 7.0s anti-virus engine defeats new viruses by using a combination of virus signature, behavior blocker and heuristic analysis to detect over 98 per cent of viruses. When combined with highly-rated firewall, anti-spyware, NAC and VPN protection under a single, centrally managed client, enterprises benefit from a reduction in complexity and deployment, management and audit costs.

NAC, policy enforcement and auto-remediation allows for continual, in-depth pre- and post-connection policy compliance checks and cooperation with network gateways to allow only authenticated and compliant endpoints to connect or continue connection to the enterprise network. Non-compliant PCs can be automatically updated without end-user involvement.

Check Point Endpoint Security 7.0 is available immediately in limited availability for qualified customers. The new messaging security features are also available immediately in the Check Point UTM-1 appliance series and the VPN-1 UTM software. Prices for UTM-1 appliances start at $7,500 US.