Check Point Application Control Reviews

The company-based applications have benefited from this software in the enhancement of security and performance acceleration. 

Check Point Application Control monitors all tools' performance and operations in all enterprise activities. 

The reported performance metrics help us allocate resources and unlock hidden business potentials. Over the past year, this product has boosted the end output of all applications and promoted efficient teamwork. Each tool can easily link and integrate with others with set task objectives.

Check Point Application Control has highly improved business operations with modern data control systems. 

It ensures that the health of each application can handle the set tasks and projects without any challenges. 

We have increased workflow performance and improved the service delivery to our clients. 

Data transfer with preferable security measures has enhanced better collaboration among teams. The connection of applications has enabled members to understand the data flow and set goals with real-time reports.

The set security measures integrated with applications help us to identify and set policies that can support our programs. 

It mitigates the security risks that can affect business tools and their implications on the overall production capacity. 

The workflow tracking capacity provides data on all employees working with certain tools and their contributions. 

Check Point Application Control can monitor the operations of many applications at the same time without low-performance experiences. There is increased revenue from the reduced cost of consolidating required security tools.

The set security features have increased the production efficiency of all applications. The new IT team monitoring this system requires proper training in order to execute the targeted goals effectively without failure. 

The set performance monitoring systems are complex to interpret and scale down their operations. 

The customer service team works tirelessly to ensure our teams are satisfied. Cloud network security has kept our assets secure since we deployed with a smooth continuation of other enterprise activities.

I've used the solution for one year and four months.

This product is stable and with high-performance capabilities.

I like the persistence of improving security across the organization from this application.

I have no words for the support team; I really congratulate them on the excellent job!

I have previously worked with AppDynamics - although the security models did not meet our targets.

It is easy to setup and learn how the product works.

The vendor team did the implementation.

The set targeted ROI has been achieved.

The setup procedure is good and the cost is suitable for most enterprises.

I evaluated operations and performance of AppDynamics.

Check Point Application Control is the best solution for security and performance controls.

With the growing technological advances that the organization is having and the data that the company needs to protect is no longer just at the perimeter area. We also need to protect the applications that are being developed, and we need to develop, grow, and deliver tailored services for different companies. We have looked for a line of security that could contemplate establishing and securing each of the lines of fire that could possibly be attacked at the moment that we made available a new application and a new service for each user or customer. They have come to have great importance in our company.

Check Point Application Control has allowed us to integrate more capabilities by limiting the use of applications. Categories can classify things so we can segment each of the features to control granularity and integrate next-generation firewall security. This allows us to consolidate security controls by reducing the costs that the company will have to invest in when it comes to having Next Generation security. This is one of the best reasons why we have invested in solutions of this type because they give us the ability to have less expense with greater security, having first-world innovation and security.

Among the features that we have used, we like being able to identify the identity of the user who is doing transactions. Thanks to that, we have greater control, and management, and have the possibility of establishing limits and controlling each of the actions that the user will establish in the application. Based on the control and capabilities of the solution, we can say today that the added value and capabilities of its features make it the ideal security solution for any company.

Seeing the capabilities and features that we are using today, we can say that we could expect an additional feature that could allow us to integrate this management and even security with APIs. Establishing passwords, communicating, and all the traffic of command data services could be established through this type of connection, and we could take advantage of secure and stable connections. This gives us the possibility to establish, place and secure the data in a safer way.

The company has been around for about a year. For a few months, we have been implementing the solution to protect and control the issue of applications in the Next Generation firewalls.

We had the need to control and be able to manage rules in a granular way for maintaining the security and control of the data, management by teams, identity, and applications grouping them by category and thus being able to defend ourselves from threats and malware that wants to enter our infrastructure while  reducing the operating cost.

Something that we need and want is an inspection of the data. We must see what the different users and applications of our network are sharing, and that is where the control solution brings us that administration value.

As our need is great, and we not only have a single organization yet also have several subsidiaries. It is there where we are integrating a centralization under well-managed control. It is where application control gives us the possibility of generating rules, and policies that are adjusted and flexible. We need the solution to be able to be adapted to the business and to be modified and scalable according to the need and evolution of our organization. It offers a powerful administration and a great catalog.

The best value we have is their actionable reports on user analytics, events, and activity that are extracted from their database. This technology allows us to present reports on the control and management of event policies against applications, locations, IoT, and Identity. Having all this data available generates a control layer that strengthens a security posture. Its best feature will forever be the generation of tangible reports of every actionable activity found and stopped by the solution.

I would like this layer to be faster to install in the future. The evolution of its equipment and appliances where the solution is executed has improved a lot, however, it is necessary to increase that capacity. Some competitors do it just as well and in that layer, are faster to apply their changes. These would give greater value and would be a differentiator. Among other things, I would like this integrated solution to manage from mobile devices in an optimized way and be able to administer from anywhere in the world.

I've used the solution for two years.

The solution is very stable and has regular updates.

It is fast and easy to scale and manage.

Their cost is based on their appliances, and they offer equipment with the highest licensing.

Check Point Application Control is a one-stop shop for providing the strongest security to an organization's business verticals in the most efficient and effective manner. 

It eases the business working as it enables smooth flow of information and helps businesses to create micro-managed accurate, granular policies, and helps in strengthening the organization's security by blocking and restricting the unknown and unsecured phishing widgets and applications across multiple integrations. 

It limits the usage and utilization of any unknown malware attempts from any application

Check Point Application Control improved the productivity of our workforce by reducing the coordination time and efforts involved in strengthening the system's security through a traditional manual way or path. 

It improved the performance outcome for all our verticals due to more automation in system security, which helped in the identification and blockage of malware-affected applications and widgets.

It helps in categorizing the basis of the application, its types, security level, the usability of resources, and its implications on productivity as a whole.

The solution is great at blocking and stopping unidentified and malware-affected applications.

The next-gen firewall system is inbuilt and is highly efficient in restricting terminated and unsecure applications.

It ensures smooth and secure API integrations with other system firewalls and applications due to advanced next-gen identification of malware-affected applications. 

Unauthorized and unsecured applications would not pose any risk to the organization's effectiveness if carried out efficiently by application control security.

In my view, more efforts are required with the business development and customer service team to create more and more awareness across businesses of all sizes on the benefits of deploying the Check Point application control security across all business verticals and improving the performance outcomes for the organization.

More and more product specifications should be infused with new incumbent features in the market to stay relevant and concurrent with the organization's needs.

They need more and more secure integration features should be included with less cost so that the adoption rate can be increased multifold amongst new business users.

I've been using the solution for over six months now.

The product is stable and highly recommended.

The solution is highly scalable and replicable across multiple platforms and systems.

We get great support and services from business and corporate customer service teams.

Positive

An in-house solution was utilized for application security previously.

The product is easy to comprehend and deploy.

We implemented the product through the vendor only.

We've seen an ROI of over 80%.

To every business out there, I strongly recommend trying Check Point Application Security and analyzing the utilities independently. It's one of the best security application software with advanced features to strengthen security with integrated applications and other platforms.

We evaluated McAfee and Trend security applications before making a final selection.

I'd advise users to go for its mandatory trial and explore the gamut of facilities on their own.

Not all of the company's web traffic goes through Check Point, however, on the significant web traffic side, we solve security needs with Check Point. 

Especially if you are going to give broad permissions, you need to block dangerous applications at the very beginning of your rule set. In this context, we use Check Point to block on an application basis. Sometimes there are general accesses. Like Azure, we can only give access by selecting the relevant applications. Check Point is a very good solution because these applications are constantly updating the IP lists on the backend.

It does not require a lot of work to be activated and used. It is quite simple to open the application layer blade and activating it means you are ready to use it. 

The concept of NGFW is actually used exactly for this feature and I can say that it does justice. Once you are ready to use it, you can optimize your rule set by selecting the desired application name in the rule. Since the objects used are updatable, the need for you to return and update is very rare. This structure really saves you time.

First of all, to use this layer, you don't need to struggle and make changes to your structure. It is enough to have a firewall with NGFW support and turn on the application layer filtering blade. Apart from that, the objects in the rules you wrote have very little margin of error. In other words, the accesses of the application you put are passed or blocked as necessary. In fact, some applications have separate objects for download and installation, so you can write the rule set you have in mind more easily.

The objects found now have large applications or general category definitions that are completely determined and organized by Check Point. It would be nice if there was a platform and small application owners could come and send their own applications' name and IP information from there. If we could use application objects directly in our rule sets in Check Point in those small companies, that would be ideal. A few more layered objects could be created for Azure in large applications. It would be nice if firewall administrators could see parser information such as IP behind these objects.

I've been using it for the past six years in different companies.

Check Point's Application Control blade is a very powerful and useful tool. To use this tool we need to purchase a subscription for it or purchase a threat prevention package. 

Our primary use case is using Application Control with Identity Awareness feature to create granular policies for users, and groups. Hence, we can control access to applications according to our internet regulations and apply them to users/groups. With the combination, even wherever users/groups are in the organization, whenever they access, they are always under control

With Application Control, we can:

1. Block the applications with critical risks like proxies, malicious VPN tools, hidden IPs, hotspots, et cetera.

2. Save network bandwidth by blocking the downloading tools, P2P sharing, or limiting access to entertainment/IPTV/Social Networking (et cetera) that consume the bandwidth.

3. Increase work productivity by only allowing access to legal destinations while blocking unnecessary accesses like gambling, games, et cetera.

4. Control data loss risk through popular channels: Facebook upload, Instagram upload, public email services (Gmail, Yahoo, et cetera), file storage, and sharing.

5. Limit the usage of the application flexibly (like allowing users to log in to Facebook, and chat but cannot upload data, video, et cetera).

6. Create more granular policies.

We can combine Application Control with Identity Awareness and URL Filtering to create security policies for users/groups based on characteristics about security, productivity and network bandwidth. The most important thing is applying internet access regulations to the firewall system is easier than ever.

The Check Point database of Application Control is the largest library and is updated periodically.

Application categories in the SmartConsole are very clear and easy to search.

The application database is public in AppWiki. This helps to search the application information. This helps people that are considering what Check Point Application Control has before deciding to purchase.

All Check Point security features can run in a single gateway or gateway cluster.

It is expensive. The application control is a subscription type, not a perpetual license. Thus, to use this feature year-by-year, customers must purchase a renewal.

To use it effectively, you must turn on the HTTPS Inspection feature. Almost all the applications are running on encrypted connections. Without HTTPS Inspection, Check Point Gateway cannot detect the behaviors of the application. This leads to the gateway's CPU usage being degraded. In an environment of high connectivity growth or using multiple security features on the same appliance, having to handle more encrypted connections will be very stressful for the CPU.

We've used the solution for more than five years.

It is very exact in application detection.

The scalability of Application Control is based on Check Point Gateway. Check Point Gateway has ClusterXL that supports up to five appliances. With the developing Maestro technology, it's very easy to scale up on demand. Using this technology allows us to maximize hardware investment and appliance capacity.

The support team is very professional.

Positive

I used Fortinet before, however, Check Point Application Control is the best. Check Point has the largest database that no other vendor can compare. Besides, the Check Point appliance is very stable.

It's a bit complicated in terms of the setup if you are combining it with Identity Awareness and HTTPS Inspection.

Our K-12 school district is currently leveraging the Check Point 6800 Gateway hardware appliance, which is running version R80.30.   

The management station runs as a virtual machine in our VMWare environment with Cisco UCS & EMC (storage) hardware and Cisco networking architecture. In addition to the exceptional performance of the hardware and extensive Firewall abilities, we manage end-user traffic related to the applications. We use the solution primarily in the social media and entertainment arenas. This feature allows us to reduce unnecessary use of our already limited bandwidth.

Prior to the newer Application Control tools, from Check Point, we didn't have nearly as much in-depth access to manage traffic in the port 80 and 443 pathways.  

As a result, we were regularly pushing the high end of our already limited bandwidth. Though we did have web/URL filtering technologies deployed, our users still had quite a bit more access to media resources that presented a distraction in our environment. The Application Control, allows us to better manage bandwidth at a more granular level.

Being able to choose specific applications in our policy rule base in order to better manage access and bandwidth utilization has had a significantly positive impact on our environment and saved a lot of management time. This feature allows us to apply all the relevant protocols from a single application "package."  

In years past, we used to have to spend a lot of management time manually diagnosing the end-user traffic in an *attempt* to determine what sites, protocols, and ports were being used by the resource. Then, we would have to create specific rules to affect that traffic, before we could regularly monitor the traffic for any unexpected rouge behavior.

One of our continued challenges is having a more accurate, real-time view of how our bandwidth is actually being used at any given moment. A feature that could really offer a lot of insight into the live traffic would be a high-quality, real-time traffic graphical monitoring module. Administrators could then "mouse-over"  any point on the graph to reveal additional information at a very granular level. The information that could be presented would include data such as the service/app used, the specific network or IP, the date/time, etc.

I've used Check Point since the late 1990s. I've used this solution for several years.

We've had zero issues. It's a solid product.

My impression is that with all the recent features and abilities added to the application control section, it should be able to scale very nicely.  I would anticipate that managing traffic at the application level would be far more efficient than in the past, with the option of creating fewer rules to accomplish the same goal.  Being able to group or, "package," together a number of similar applications that contain all the relevant protocols, will be a big benefit over time.

As the product has performed well, we have had little interaction with Check Point's customer support. We have been reasonably satisfied, during the limited times of engagement.

Neutral

We have been using the Check Point firewall suite of products, since the floppy disk installation days.

We had the guidance and aid of a partner vendor and it was not overly complicated.

We have worked with a vendor for years and have been very pleased.

ROI is difficult to quantify in terms of money.  However,, we can easily say that our management time has decreased and end-user activities have been more on-task.

Pricing is a bit high for our K12 organization. The setup is not painful. That said, planning is crucial - as well as a thorough understanding of your network architecture and desired outcomes. 

We did not evaluate other options.

I'd advise users to go with Check Point.

The product is standard software in our organization.

With this solution, you can actually control approved software for use by particular individuals in your company. You can offer it to certain users and disallow it for others. 

The product is great for allowing access to certain users for certain software.

The stability has been good overall.

The scalability is good.

Its initial setup is very simple and straightforward. 

Technical support has been helpful.

We haven't had any issues with the product. There aren't really any features missing.

We would like the product to be a bit more user-friendly in general.

We've been using the solution for one year. It hasn't been that long. 

The stability is good. thee are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. Its performance is reliable. 

You can scale the solution as needed.

We have 2,000 users on the product currently.

We do plan to increase usage and will add more of it as we add more employees to the organization.

Technical support is knowledgeable and quite good when it comes to helping out its user base. We are very satisfied with their level of support.

The implementation process is straightforward and very easy. It's a central department controlled by the console, the main console, which makes it straightforward once you populate it to all of the endpoints.

We do need to pay a yearly subscription in order to access the product.

We are internally using this product in our company. We are not offering it to customers. 

It's deployed directly on our laptops. 

I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I would recommend the product to other users and organizations. 

Our company works in the area of developing and delivering online gambling platforms. The Check Point Next-Generation Firewalls are the core security solution we use for the protection of our DataCenter environment located in Asia (Taiwan). The environment has about ~50 physical servers as virtualization hosts, and we have two HA Clusters consist of 2x5400 hardware appliances, managed by an OpenServer Security Management Server on a Virtual Machine (KVM), all running on R80.10 with the latest JumboHotfix. The Application Control software blade is one of the numerous blades activated on the NGFWs and serves for the security improvement in the application detection, categorization, and filtration.

The overall security of the environment has been greatly improved by the Check Point NGFWs. Before implementing the Check Point solutions, we relied on the Cisco ACLs and Zone-Based firewalls configured on the switches and routers, which in fact a simple stateful firewall, and currently appear to be not an efficient solution for protecting from the advanced threats. The Check Point Application control-blade significantly increased the security level from the standpoint of application visibility and filtration. The blade was easy to enable and configure, and we don't see any performance penalty after the activation of it. 

1. The built-in database of the applications, software and the protocols is just amazing - there are more than 8 thousands available just after the blade application. In comparison, the Cisco Network-Based Application Recognition (NBAR) available on the routers provides like 200 applications.

2. The application are categorized into group based on the purpose, like messengers, databases, games etc., and such group objects may be directly use in the Security Policies for the NGFWs.

3. It it really simple to add new custom application definitions and groups if you need so (we use such an option for our own developed software on non-standard ports).

4. The visibility is just great. For any security event of the Application Control blade there is a relevant log entry with all the application details (but don't forget to enable logging for the security rule in the Policy).

I think that the pricing for the Check Point products should be reconsidered - we found it to be quite expensive to purchase and to maintain (the licenses and the support services need to be prolonged regularly), or create some additional bundles of the software blades with significant discounts in addition to the current Next Generation Threat Prevention & SandBlast (NGTX) and Next Generation Threat Prevention (NGTP) offers.

We also had several support cases opened for software issues, but none of them were connected with the Application Control blade.

We have been using the Check Point Application Control for about three years, starting in late 2017.

The Application Control software blade is stable.

The Application Control software blade scales well with the gateways we use, since it doesn't affect the overall performance much after activation.

We have had several support cases opened, but none of them were connected with the Application Control software blade. Some of the issue were resolved by installing the latest recommended JumoHotfix, some required additional configuration on OS kernel level. The longest issue took about one month to be resolved, which we consider too long.

We used the ACLs and Zone-Based firewalls with NBAR on the Cisco switches, routers, and found that this approach doesn't provide sufficient security protection against the modern advanced threats.

The setup was straightforward. The configuration was easy and understandable - we relied heavily on the built-in objects and groups.

In-house team - we have a Check Point Certified engineer working in the engineering team.

Choosing the correct set of the licenses is essential - without the additional software blade licenses purchased the Check Point gateways are just stateful firewall.

We didn't evaluate other vendors or solutions.

It is one of the main solutions that we have applied in our offices for the administrative control of access to specific services social networks within the corporation, viewing of videos or services that in some way distract the worker from their activities. It's also facilitated us with the ability to separate the databases by a gateway which makes the administration and the permissions granted to the end-users much easier.

One of the ways it's helped us improve was in the administration and the permissions for specific services. This was very useful to us when making a database per gateway and configuring them through layers to have better visualization, control, and administration of the rules, which allows new administrators to have a better scope and understanding of the organization. This has undoubtedly been the newest thing for us as gateways administrators.

One of the aspects of the solution that has given us more value is the integration of a domain controller with the firewall through the dashboard which allows that through inline layers, LDAP.

The visualization of users, the administration, and the permissions that we can grant to users makes our configuration a more dynamic environment since, as organizational units of an active directory, we can grant permissions to users to specific applications allowed through the URL filtering or application control within the dashboard.

With Check Point we are more protected, however, one of the issues is the cost. They are expensive products due to the fact that we have to buy blades for each solution that we want to integrate into our corporate. Without a doubt, it is worth it, however, it is an important point that could be considered. 

Likewise, nowadays a 2MFA solution could be integrated to Check Point since nowadays remote connections made with remote workers are required to protect the extension from the office to your home through a VPN connection.

I've used the solution for about three years.

The Check Point solution is very stable, however, the installation of JHF at least once a month is somewhat annoying since that could be interpreted as not being a stable solution.

In terms of scalability, my impressions have always been good since there is a lot of scalability in this service. For example, you can integrate several solutions to a centralized administration.

They have an excellent support team. They are fast and it is easy to escalate any situation.

Positive

We did not previously use a different solution.

The setup was straightforward.

We handle the implementation in-house.

We've seen a 40% ROI.

Despite the somewhat high cost, based on the blades, it is a reliable solution.

We didn't evaluate other solutions.