Interviews

Check Point Warns Against The Cloud

Interviewed by Radhika Nallayam Fri, Apr 09, 2010

In general, cloud computing represents a very big challenge for security, and enterprises should be warned about the risk of plunging too quickly into it.
Itzack Weinreb, VP Sales, APAC & Africa, Check Point

What is the biggest shift in enterprise security in the past year and how is Check Point addressing it?

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WEINREB: Managing security in today’s world is complex and has left companies challenged with how to manage a new generation of threat vectors. With these new threats come new security solutions, costly new hardware, and increasing complexity. However, installing too many point products can cause security management issues. We enable organizations to protect their business from new threats, easily integrating new security services on existing infrastructure. Check Point’s Software Blade architecture expands services as needed without the addition of new hardware or management complexity.

How are you addressing the security needs that arise from the increasing mobile workforce among enterprises?

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WEINREB: Despite the increasing number of remote workers, many organizations aren’t taking the appropriate security precautions to protect sensitive data on corporate endpoints, so there is indeed a large potential there.

We offer several solutions for data security on the endpoint already. We also provide a range of secure remote access solutions to fit the mobile lifestyle needs of diverse users. Whoever the user, we deliver secure remote access solutions to meet the needs of mobile lifestyles.

Tell us about your initiatives on security virtualization front?

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WEINREB: We are uniquely positioned in the virtualization area as most of our competitors in this sphere are hardware companies. As a software company, it is natural for us to be there. We have a lot of virtualization solutions and virtual editions (VE) of several of our products running within a VMWare environment. We also have VSX-1 solution that allows any organization to optimize space and costs by consolidating up to multiple firewalls into one platform and service up to 250 customers. We are providing all the interfaces to plug in, inside the virtual environment, in the firewall between the virtual systems and inside to the wall.

Do trends like cloud introduce new challenges and security requirements within an enterprise?

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WEINREB: In general, cloud computing represents a very big challenge for security, and enterprises should be warned about the risk of plunging too quickly into it. Companies using in-the-cloud services don’t really know who they are sharing their environment with and that creates a lot of vulnerabilities. You may be running your data on the same database than hundred others and you don’t know what security mechanism is used by your service provider. Security is about control, and few large enterprises will give up control of business-critical applications until the benefits justify the risk. Until that point is reached, only larger organizations should adopt cloud computing and only for simple functions that can benefit from economies of scale.

What can your partners expect from you in 2010?

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WEINREB: Channel enablement is one of our top priorities in 2010. We want to continue increase our commitment and investment towards our channel. We plan on recruiting additional partners across all regions, and work on creating new revenue opportunities for our existing partners. In 2010, our plans are to provide more security and more products, by expanding the areas of security we cover.

Next :Boston Accelerates India Roadmap

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