Check Point 1800 Next-Gen firewall review

We’re going to look at the new Check Point 1800 next-generation firewall. The Check Point 1600 and the 1800, are fairly new appliances, and the largest in the Quantum Spark family of firewalls.

Understand that Check Point’s focus is on prevention rather than detection. In other words, blocking known and unknown cyber-attacks to ensure business continuity.

The list of security features is long, and impressive. To name a few, there are site-to-site VPN, remote access VPN, IoT device recognition, intrusion prevention, antispam, and intrusion prevention.

There’s also application control, advanced URL filtering, IPS, antivirus, anti-bot. In addition, there’s email security, policy management, monitoring and event management.

Highly customizable

Check Points are not intended to be as plug-and-play as some other vendors. However, if you decide to simply use the default setting, you can be up and running in just a minute or two. Setup can be done in minutes using pre-defined security policies and a step-by-step configuration wizard. The Quantum Spark series, like the 1800, are easy to manage locally via a Web interface. They can also be managed centrally with a cloud-based Check Point Security Management Portal or R80 Security Management.

However, Check Points are devices you build around and customize into your environment. And that customization is the beauty of the Check Point 1800. You can use the defaults if you like. But, if you do need to tune the system to do something just for your environment, you can do so with the Checkpoint. This granularity also gives you better visibility into your environment than many other vendors.

And, they have an excellent Engineering and Professional Services team in place to help you to realize your goals. So there’s no guesswork; no crossing your fingers and hoping it works. These professionals will get you there. Just remember, to get the very most out of the Check Point 1800, you’ll need someone with an IT background. But their support teams are top of the line. They are highly trained to take those deep dives with you. They will understand your needs. This truly is one of Check Point’s strengths.

Compare the 1800 and the 1600

The Check Point 1600 has Threat Protection Throughput of 1.5 Gbps, Next-Gen Firewall Throughput at 3.2 Gbps, and IPS Throughput at 3.5 Gbps. Firewall Throughput is 4.8 Gbps. Lots of holes across the front, with 16x 1GbE LAN switch ports, 1x 1GbE copper/fiber DMZ port, a console port, two USB ports, and a GbE copper WAN port.

By comparison, the 1800 pushes 2 Gbps of Threat Protection Throughput, 5 Gbps of Next-Gen Firewall Throughput, and 5.5 Gbps of IPS Throughput. Firewall Throughput is 7.5 Gbps. It also has 2 2.5 GbE copper ports (LAN), 1 10GbE copper port (DMZ), and an additional 1GbE copper WAN port that the 1600 does not. It also has a 1GbE management port.

The great thing about Check Point is that because of its central architecture, you can very quickly pinpoint where the attacks are coming from. It gives you comprehensive reporting when the attacks start and when they’ve stopped. So you can see the complete, end-to-end picture: where the point of attack is, at what time, and what host. It can track all of that. One of the main advantages of having Check Point firewall is definitely that it gives you absolute in-depth visibility.

Why not give Corporate Armor a call at 877-449-0458, or reach out at [email protected]? We would love to help you decide what sort of security solution is a perfect fit for you. And we have a great deal of experience as a Check Point partner! Thanks for reading!

Highlights of the Check Point 1800

5 Gbps Next-Gen firewall throughput
2 Gbps Threat Prevention
7.5 Gbps Max Firewall Throughput
5.5 Gbps IPS Throughput