Check Point CloudGuard WAF Reviews

We have multiple cloud tenants, such as AWS and Azure, and we wanted to make sure we are secure.

By implementing CloudGuard WAF, we wanted to avoid using the built-in WAF. We wanted to avoid using the WAFs built into our Azure or AWS products. We wanted to make sure that we were using something proven and secure.

It is extremely important to us that CloudGuard WAF protects our applications against threats without relying on signatures. We are a financial institution, and we want to make sure that we do not have any type of traffic that infiltrates our cloud environment. We have 90,000 members around the world.

CloudGuard WAF is very good in terms of false positives. I do not see a lot of static noise, which we used to see with other apps that were in place. It is fantastic.

CloudGuard WAF has been fantastic for preemptively blocking Zero Day attacks and detecting hidden anomalies. I would rate it a ten out of ten for that. As soon as we see a Zero Day, we get the alerts right away, and we are able to do the patching. This guarantees the use of our services. It is immediate and in real-time.

CloudGuard WAF has reduced the total cost of ownership for our web application firewall. It has reduced the overhead of not having people manually look at or review the alerts. It has been more automated.

It is mainly for egress and ingress, just making sure that we are keeping the proper traffic. The integration with Azure ExpressRoute was also key for us.

We have not had any incidents. We could realize its benefits immediately. We watched and monitored the traffic, and it was amazing to see the results.

In terms of features, I do not have any negatives. Their integration is extremely quick. It is better than others I have been involved with in the past. Their pricing model, however, can be better. 

I have been using CloudGuard WAF for two years.

We have had zero issues. Being a financial organization, just like others, our big issue is having any kind of downtime. Any downtime affects our members, and if our members are affected, they will withdraw the money. It has been fantastic. We have had zero events.

There are no real ends. We are a smaller environment compared to what they are used to working with. I have no concerns with being able to scale with them.

It is being used across cross-functional teams for different applications that are involved. We have 335 employees, and at least 300 employees touch this environment at any given time.

We definitely have plans to increase its usage. There are some plans in-house to expand the cloud environment.

They are fantastic. We never had an issue. Whenever we need something, we get a response. 

We also have a managed service provider. We have engineers from the Teneo group, and they are always great if we need any help. 

Positive

We were using the built-in WAF, but that was before my time, and I knew better. 

We did not go with our cloud vendor's web application firewall because it is against the best practices. From everything I have read and studied, I would rather go with something that is proven. There are a lot more vulnerabilities that have been exploited with native WAFs.

It is a public cloud. We have AWS and Azure.

I was involved in the initial deployment only from a high level. I was able to support the team to grab the necessary resources. Outside of that, it was just more of approvals.

Its deployment was straightforward. The deployment was outlined very well. We use one of the resellers and managed service providers for Check Point called Teneo. They explained everything. They told us exactly how it was going to go. They had their folks in place, and it was just very straightforward. It was very easy.

We had the help of Teneo. They were brilliant, and then I was able to help the team with the right pieces to get it accomplished.

We recently did an integration with Azure ExpressRoute. We are bringing it in so that we have a safer way for the egress and ingress with our vendors. I wanted to make sure that we involved the infrastructure team. We had a cloud architect and our cybersecurity team involved. We also ran it through our change advisory board and the architectural review board. We wanted to cover all bases to make sure that all aspects are covered.

We have definitely seen an ROI. There has been a consolidation with not just the cloud stack, but Check Point in general. It has been nice to eliminate products. We have already eliminated close to $250,000 annually in different tools by consolidation.

This is where I have a different opinion. If the pricing for the Infinity platform covers everything, it would be more straightforward. I had a hard time selling it to our CEO as a former CFO because of the differentials. There are different deltas year to year over a five-year period. It is very difficult to explain. It would be easier to digest for our executives if there was a flatter scale.

We did not evaluate other solutions only because we have Check Point in-house, and I was able to talk to our rep. We were able to get a nice solution from them, so we did not have to evaluate any other solution.

To those evaluating CloudGuard WAF, I would advise that for integration, make sure they have a trusted partner that is going to help them with the integration plan or they have the in-house skills to develop that plan. 

I would rate CloudGuard WAF a ten out of ten.

Our primary use cases include enhancing security for web applications and APIs, optimizing resource utilization to reduce costs, and maximizing efficiency in log management for better insights and savings.

CloudGuard WAF has improved our organization by simplifying security management and enhancing our ability to monitor and analyze logs effectively.

The most valuable feature we have found in Check Point CloudGuard WAF is its rich logging capabilities.

In terms of improvement, I feel like I need more clarity in understanding pricing for DDoS protection.

I have been working with CloudGuard WAF for a month.

CloudGuard WAF impressed us with its stability; it is a powerful tool providing great visibility.

CloudGuard WAF's scalability is excellent, especially as a SaaS, offering significant improvements over on-premises environments and providing consolidated scalability.

The technical support is amazing.

We previously used Cloudflare. Now, we are testing WAF to enhance our log insights.

The initial deployment was straightforward. We transitioned from an on-premises solution to a SaaS model, which was simpler and more useful. Our implementation strategy involved redirecting the site to the new solution and creating policies to ensure smooth operation.

We haven't seen ROI metrics yet, but we expect long-term benefits, especially in budget management and risk reduction.

Before choosing CloudGuard, we evaluated options like Azure and AWS. The main differences lie in policy customization, market size, and preset features. Each has its pros and cons, but CloudGuard stood out for its robust policy options and wide market presence.

By implementing Check Point CloudGuard WAF we aimed to address challenges related to enhancing security for web applications while leveraging powerful logging capabilities.

We check false positives in CloudGuard WAF using logs and the interface, and we have had very few issues, which helps our business.

Using preset policies, the solution preemptively blocks zero-day attacks and detects hidden anomalies without requiring full data.

The solution has cut our web application firewall costs because it is adaptable to our environment.

My advice to new users would be to focus on the benefits of software as a service and ensure clarity in understanding pricing, particularly for DDoS protection.

Overall, I would rate Check Point CloudGuard WAF as a ten out of ten.

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security is the one-stop solution for the security of applications and providing API protection to servers and facilities 24/7. 

The security of API integrations is the need of the hour for all kinds of businesses. All the workloads and cloud servers are singularly managed through a unified security mechanism, which ensures round-the-clock protection of applications and servers from endpoints and malware threats.

For our organization, it plays a critical role in easy deployment and API integration with all kinds of cloud servers and platforms of external stakeholders.

It has provided 24/7 security to our servers on-premise and works remotely for our remote workforce and workloads. 

It offers all-around protection from malware attacks and endpoints and has helped us to bring more compliance in the organization and also ensure that no slips ups happened on aspects of security for servers and cloud systems integrated pan country with different external stakeholders system. 

It helps to bring confidence in clients, and there is better retention of business for a longer period of time.

Also, it helps us to streamline our revenue streams, and comparatively, we are burning less money on application security now. 

The best features for ensuring application and cloud servers security are:

1. High-grade and extremely advanced security features like Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) for restricting entry of potential ransomware into the system and server.

2. They offer free trials, which is quite appreciative and grabs more attention from new users and businesses.

3. Security enhancement of systems and servers through "bot prevention" is amazing and worth using to ensure end-to-end security of applications.

4. The easy deployment and flexible customizations as per user and market requirements are worth adding to our systems.

I advise proactive threat detection intelligence offline, which can also help monitor and ensure system checks and compliances are in place. At present, we require a lot of customization and additional features to make it usable in our system.

The additional customization features are costing us huge, which is why we are a bit hesitant in doing fast, rapid customizations as it's quite dynamic, and features might change in the next six months due to the huge level of tech advancement in the cloud application security environment.

The cost should be minimal so that every business can use the offerings without any hesitation, and it does not become a burden for anyone.

I've spent almost nine months with this software.

The solution offers stable services.

It is highly scalable across different work environments.

An internal security solution was being used previously and it was locally managed by a third party.

The solution is straightforward to set up and easygoing throughout.

We implemented through vendor services only as that's the only permissible mode for our organization as per our internal compliance and approved processes.

We've seen an ROI of close to 90%.

I would strongly recommend all IT workforce and IT organizations try Check Point Cloud Guard Application Security. It is one of the best solution providers and is highly dependable and credible in terms of the way they operate and its professional commitment. It's amazing to work with them as they never disappoint you and you will have the best customer experience ever.

We evaluated quite a lot of options. We looked into Qualys Cloud Platform, Trend Micro Security, Onapsis, etc. 

Try their solution and experience the utilities and service offerings yourself. This will give you first-hand exposure and experience and will result in longer customer satisfaction.

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security adds additional security to cloud-connected devices. It's one of the most robust products on the market, and that is why we decided to implement it at our company. 

To properly utilize Azure’s cloud resources, our team needed a way to ensure secure access. As a result, they chose Microsoft’s cloud security tools. These included creating firewall rules and compliance with company policies. Additionally, devices and users that connect to Azure would also use the tools to apply security posture controls.

Check Point CloudGuard State Management is a solution that helps our company ensure that all devices connecting to our cloud environment comply with security standards, which helps us mitigate a wide range of vulnerabilities and other software vulnerabilities. 

Also, through the control of the security situation, we can ensure employees adhere to company policies that help reduce the risk of human error and accidental data breaches.

It helps IT departments achieve superior network security and improve security policies.

It also helps us a lot in facilitating the security of remote workloads.

Check Point CloudGuard State Management has several valuable features that are very important to companies as they can greatly help remediate vulnerabilities. 

Some of them are:

• Device health checks help us verify that each device meets the appropriate standards.
• User attitude reviews help us keep all online users compliant with company regulations and policies.
• Compliance reporting helps us simplify reporting on compliance with security standards and company policies.

With these qualities, we managed to get the company to a higher level of security.

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security can be improved in general as any security tool will do what you need, yet sometimes minor updates or improvements are needed. Some updates are needed due to integration with other security solutions. Some organizations may wish to be able to integrate other security solutions into this product. It needs to have the ability to monitor network traffic and detect potential security threats in real-time. 

The analysis is time-consuming. In order to minimize steps and waiting time, they need to make it simpler. 

They need improved latency in the main window.

The tool's documentation has to be improved to make it easier to find items. 

They should improve technical support areas.

The solution was implemented three years ago.

It has excellent stability and has not presented errors since it was implemented.

The tool presents very good and functional scalability. To this day, we have not presented any problem.

The support it provides is not very good. They should improve that detail since we have had several setbacks due to this problem.

Positive

I have not used any other option before. All our implementation was on-premises previously and we did not have the need to work remotely.

The implementation of the tool is very easy. There are several steps via a wizard. Where it gets complicated is during the configuration. If you do not have extensive knowledge of the tool, it becomes complicated.

The implementation was done through the vendor, who gave us a support engineer to help us with the implementation and configuration of the tool. Others gave us some training as well. 

It is always a good idea to make an investment in something that will be profitable. The returns are very good.

While the Check Point Harmony Connect tool may not be available to everyone, for those who can afford it, it's an excellent solution for added security

No other option was evaluated since we had some tools from the same family.

This is an excellent tool that helps improve security and governance.

We did a PoC with Check Point CloudGuard WAF for a month. We had acquired it for a month for testing purposes to see how it would help us with our setup.

It was placed at the starting point of our network infrastructure wherein all the traffic was monitored. We created security policies on Check Point CloudGuard WAF. Whenever an IP used to come to us, it would basically go through a set of policies, and then Check Point CloudGuard WAF would search for malware and other things in the traffic.

During the PoC, we did not face any issues related to false positives. I am in the network security team, and we have a security operations team as well. The security operations team has an SIEM tool. Whenever an alert got updated in the SIEM tool, they used to pass it on to us. We could easily find the logs for a particular alert generated on Check Point CloudGuard WAF. It was always correct. We did not observe any false positives with them.

Check Point CloudGuard WAF protects your applications against threats without relying on signatures. It works fine without signatures, but it cannot detect all the malicious traffic that might enter the setup.

Check Point has its own threat intelligence database. It is global. All the malicious samples are added to that. Whenever there was a new CVE, Check Point CloudGuard WAF used to block them. That was a good feature of Check Point CloudGuard WAF.

We had scheduled a time for the database update, so every day at 3 pm, the CVE database used to get updated.

It was costlier than other solutions. We brought it into our setup for PoC purposes. It was there for one month. We liked all the features, but compared to its competitors, such as Fortinet and Palo Alto, it was a little bit costly. However, considering the cost, it was good and efficient. Other than the price, I did not see any room for improvement.

I used Check Point CloudGuard WAF for a month. It was in the month of January 2024.

We never faced any issues with Check Point CloudGuard WAF. However, in the case of Check Point Firewall, we experienced crashing issues with the SmartConsole application.

I have not contacted Check Point support for Check Point CloudGuard WAF. It was with us only during the PoC. During the one-month period, we did not face any issues, but for other products, we generally raise a TAC case with the Check Point team. We have a Check Point Firewall in our setup, and whenever we face issues with it, we raise a case with Check Point TAC. Technical support of Check Point is good. They respond on time. They analyze the logs properly and give a proper workaround.

I was not involved in its deployment. We have a company named Softcell in India. They are the first point of contact, and Check Point is the second point of contact in our setup. Whenever we have to implement any new Check Point devices in our setup, we raise a service request with the Softcell team, and they provide an engineer for the implementation. However, I was a part of the deployment team of the Check Point Firewall 16000 series, and we did not face any issues.

I work for an Indian banking client. In India, companies are on a budget. The company liked Check Point very much, but it was a little bit costly compared to FortiWeb. However, it had more features compared to FortiWeb. 

Check Point CloudGuard WAF was quite good compared to FortiWeb. We have FortiWeb now due to budget constraints, but feature-wise, Check Point CloudGuard WAF was quite durable and reliable.

I am not very aware of how Check Point CloudGuard WAF works at preemptively blocking Zero Day attacks and detecting hidden anomalies. If it is updated in the global database, Check Point CloudGuard WAF could prevent Zero Day attacks from getting triggered.

Overall, I would rate Check Point CloudGuard WAF a nine out of ten.

Currently, we have our applications and devices in the Microsoft cloud in Azure. We have been modernizing our platform, and some services we have been converting to a platform as a service for which many app services have been implemented, among other workloads, and we needed to expose them to the outside. Therefore, a tool was needed that could do this security filtering and that also provided a set of native tools and functionalities for the cloud and checkpoint to meet the needs that we were presenting.

Since we were able to implement this new tool, we have been able to put into production all the applications that we have modernized for the use of our clients and officials, thus resulting in a more continuous and faster improvement of our services and achieving better scalability, stability and we have managed to reduce the costs and labor in IT, thus ensuring that our developers dedicate themselves to other projects and not be making patches for the applications as we were doing due to our obsolete technology, in addition, it provided us with regulatory compliance, monitoring, and analysis of all applications.

The tool has many valuable features that help us in our day-to-day life with all the applications. With the solution, we managed to obtain complete comprehensive visibility of the entire environment in the cloud, thus having better control of each of the resources.

In addition to that, we managed to have security policies that allow us to reward compliance in each of the applications. We've been able to provide better regulatory compliance, thus being able to mitigate security risks in our environment and achieve a better standard in the security of the company.

The tool is currently one of the best on the market. It has a series of more innovative features in the security market. That said, there are improvements necessary.

They should improve in the delivery of more detailed reports with more information. 

They should improve in the support they provide since they have lost a lot of strength here. Quality has dropped; they do not comply with the SLA. 

They should have a centralized library of each of the manual technologies, guides, and errors where everything can be found in one place so that we do not waste time searching all over the web for a solution or guide.

This solution is new; I have been using it for one year,

To this day, the stability of the tool is very good and has not presented any problems.

The scalability of the tool is very good; it is multi-cloud.

The support must be improved. The performance and quality it offers have decreased.

Neutral

It is one of the first tools that implements application security.

The installation was simple since we have experience with these tools, however, it does have a medium learning curve.

The implementation was carried out by the IT department with the help and supervision of the vendor's engineer.

The investment was quite relevant; we did it to protect our information and power the applications in production.

The price and licenses are very competitive in the market and should go down a little.

We did look into Microsoft tools, such as the WAF, which were evaluated. They did not meet the organization's needs.

It is an excellent multicloud tool with good security features.

We utilize Check Point CloudGuard to protect our Office 365 email system from phishing attempts, which were becoming increasingly common. Additionally, we rely on it to secure our usage of Microsoft Teams for collaboration, as well as for our SharePoint platform. Furthermore, we leverage CloudGuard Endpoint to safeguard our machines, particularly because many of our end users frequently travel abroad. This ensures that we have visibility into their activities and locations, allowing us to restrict access if necessary or provide remote assistance when needed.

We were facing several challenges that prompted us to implement CloudGuard Application Security. Previously, we used another vendor for email security, but we found that many emails were slipping through, requiring us to manually review each one. This became a significant overhead, as we had to ensure that every email was properly tagged. With Check Point's email security solution, this overhead was practically eliminated. 

Now, the number of emails slipping through is minimal, perhaps only once or twice a month. Additionally, Check Point's solution streamlines the process by notifying users of potentially legitimate emails that were flagged as suspicious. This feature has been particularly helpful since our company relies heavily on email for contract-related communications. On the endpoint security front, we were impressed by Check Point's ransomware protection feature, including its anti-ransomware rollback capability. Having experienced the importance of such features in previous roles, it was a straightforward decision for us to switch from our previous vendor to Check Point.

The benefits we've observed are significant. On the email front, my workload has been drastically reduced, practically eliminating overhead. As for Check Point, it provides peace of mind knowing that in the event of a ransomware attack, the system has a rollback feature. This reassures me that I'll have the opportunity to investigate and diagnose any issues that may arise.

In terms of email, Check Point's solution effectively blocked numerous phishing emails that were previously slipping through, which is a significant advantage. Regarding Check Point in general, the cloud-based management capability is highly beneficial as it eliminates the need for on-premise appliances or servers. Additionally, it ensures that I can still manage the security of devices even when they're outside the corporate network.

It's very important that CloudGuard Application Security defends our applications against threats without solely relying on signatures. Relying solely on signature-based detection is limited, as it's only as effective as the signatures themselves. With the ever-evolving nature of threats, especially in environments like conferences where new threats emerge frequently, relying solely on signatures may not be sufficient. I've taken the initiative to test various security solutions by experimenting with different malware downloads and observing how they perform. This hands-on approach underscores the importance of having a robust behavioral engine, like the one provided by Check Point, which adds an additional layer of security beyond traditional signature-based detection.

Regarding false positives with CloudGuard Application Security, particularly in emails, I've encountered very few instances.

The solution has effectively lowered our total cost of ownership for our web application firewall, particularly in the context of email security.

We opted not to go with our CloudGuard vendor's web application firewall because, in the case of Microsoft, we decided to try their email security system. However, it didn't perform as expected, with many threats slipping through. Consequently, Check Point's solution proved to be more effective in this scenario.

On the endpoint side, the most valuable feature is undoubtedly the cloud-based management capability, along with the ransomware protection, despite not encountering any instances so far. Regarding email security, the standout feature is the minimal overhead, essentially reducing the task to routine maintenance.

One area for potential improvement is the management interface. Occasionally, when there are major updates, the layout of the menus changes, which can be somewhat disruptive as I need to search for familiar options. Consistency in menu structure would be beneficial, as it allows users to develop muscle memory and navigate the interface more efficiently over time. Improving the process for handling licensing renewals would be a welcome enhancement.

I have been using it for five years.

In terms of stability, I find it generally reliable. However, there have been a few issues, particularly with license renewal, where the system would unexpectedly go offline without notifying me. This would sometimes take a couple of days to resolve, requiring support intervention to address licensing issues.

Tech support is prompt, knowledgeable, and efficient. On a scale from zero to ten, I would rate them a solid ten.

Positive

Previously, our email security solution was provided by Barracuda, and our endpoint security was handled by ESET.

The initial setup was straightforward, primarily because it involved mainly APIs, which simplified the process.

I was in charge for the deployment.

We've observed ROI primarily in terms of cost reduction. This is mainly because there are fewer servers to manage now compared to other solutions, where on-premise servers were necessary.

I find the pricing to be reasonable.

I also evaluated SentinelOne, CrowdStrike, Mimecast, and CheckPoint. Ultimately, I chose Check Point because of its comprehensive IT toolset, which allows me to manage all aspects from a single dashboard. I appreciated the convenience of not having to switch between different units for different functionalities, thus avoiding the creation of multiple interfaces.

The advice I would offer to others regarding Check Point products revolves around their robust features, particularly the rollback feature. I appreciate how Check Point handles this compared to some competitors who use their own driver on the DriveSpace, whereas others leverage Microsoft VSS. Regarding email security, it's straightforward to deploy and has a high catch rate compared to competitors. Overall, I would rate it ten out of ten.

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security is one of the most robust tools on the market. For that reason, we decided to implement it in our company. All our operations were migrated to the Azure cloud area, where we maintain a large part of our load. 

We needed a tool that offered us the security of keeping all assets safe. The APIs that we have integrated into our systems could also provide protection and restrict all malware attacks in our environment, preventing us from dealing with all kinds of vulnerabilities.

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security strengthened the security in our company and helped the IT department achieve excellent security across the network. 

We also found that the tool had an excellent integration with the Azure cloud, which is the main reason as to why we chose it.

It's also helped us a lot to ease security on remote workloads, as we have several of our employees in hybrid roles. 

It helps us streamline our revenue streams, and we're spending less money on application security.

The tool presents several valuable features in the security of applications and devices.

The product can be tested for free for a few days or months.

It improves the security of systems and APIs through the prevention of vulnerabilities that it manages.

The configuration and installation of the tool are very simple.

It helped us to gain an economic return since it helped us to minimize expenses in administrative areas. This is something that the corporate area of the company liked, as they are always looking for ways to save money and reduce budgets.

The tool works perfectly, and improvements should be made, if any, in various technical and administrative aspects.

They have to improve the login functionality. At present, some slowness is experienced at the time of entering.

Profiling takes a long time. they need to to minimize steps and wait times.

The documentation of each of the tools that they offer needs to be better. They should create a repository where we can find everything. They should also improve the quality of technical support that they offer since that has been one of the lowest points that we have found in their offering.

The product was implemented approximately one year ago.

The stability of the tool is excellent, and it is very robust, providing us with peace of mind.

The solution maintains excellent scalability and is very functional.

The experience with support has not been good. We have already had several escalations since problems do not resolve quickly.

Positive

Previously we had Fortinet. We changed when the technology became very outdated.

The first setup is done with a platform engineer, and the process was very easy.

The implementation was done internally. The first phase was handled by an engineer from the provider.

It is always good to make an excellent investment in security. Companies that do this will be profitable in the future.

The tool does have a high cost compared to others on the market. However, it has more features.

We did not evaluate other options since we had Check Point tools. What we did was update and configure pre-existing solutions to use in the cloud.

This is an excellent tool that provides secure connections.