As cyberattacks become more sophisticated and difficult to prevent, organizations need to step away from human-created models to fully provide comprehensive cybersecurity protection. Check Point uses AI, machine learning, and deep learning to prevent sophisticated zero-day cyber security threats. Check Point’s user interface improves security operations efficiency by quickly detecting, investigating, and automating responses across the entire IT infrastructure.

Eyal Manor, VP of Product Management – Check Point

“We believe being identified as a leader in The Forrester Wave for Enterprise Firewalls acknowledges our commitment to best-in-class security,” said Eyal Manor, VP of Product Management at Check Point. “In our opinion, this recognition solidifies our position as a leader in providing the most innovative deep learning technologies that enable enterprises to scale threat prevention with a fully supported unified management system. We are committed to continuously improving our threat intelligence, automating policy management, and unceasingly delivering superior support.”

Other findings include:

• Check Point excels in overall security performance with superior malware analysis and IDS/IPS.
• Check Point kept its supply chain intact during the pandemic and customer references continue to hold the vendor’s usability in high regard.
• Check Point’s user interface continues to be excellent, being both visually pleasing and intuitive.
• Check Point’s new firewall as a service offers five 9s (99.999%) availability with a very low 35ms latency connection. Harmony Connect provides comprehensive security from the cloud to apply a zero-trust policy to enterprise applications in the data center, IaaS or SaaS applications, secure internet access and browsing for remote users, and protect direct connections from branch offices to the cloud by securing organizations’ current SD-WAN infrastructures.

From virtual meetings to immersive 3D customer experiences or even property tours, the Metaverse will transform the way that companies operate. Gartner predicts that by 2026, a quarter of us will spend at least one hour a day in the Metaverse for work, shopping, education, social media, and/or entertainment. Some brands are already there today, such as Nike and Coca-Cola, who are using them to drive brand awareness and the purchase of physical products. With so much buzz around the Metaverse, it’s easy to see why more and more companies will start to do business there. But are they thinking about the risks? We will certainly need a different approach to security in a virtual world compared to the physical, but what will that entail? Let’s take a look at what the risks are and how to start getting prepared (because you do need to start now).

Ram Narayanan, Country Manager – ME, Check Point

The biggest hurdle to the Metaverse being a secure environment is in its foundations. The Metaverse is built on blockchain technology and we have already seen serious security gaps in NFT marketplaces and blockchain platforms such as OpenSea, Rarible, and Everscale. Due to the sheer amount of malicious activity that we already see exploiting services based on the blockchain, we believe it won’t be long before we start to see initial attacks in the Metaverse too. It will likely be based on authorization, and user accounts will get hijacked, so we expect that identity and authentication will sit at the heart of everything we want to do.

Redefining Reality

Another key security challenge is in the safe spaces needed to conduct business. Imagine you’re on a Zoom or Teams call. It’s a private meeting space, right? But what will that be like in the Metaverse? How do we know that a chair someone is sitting on isn’t an avatar and we have an impostor in our midst? You may think that can’t possibly happen, but it’s a virtual world. Of course, it can. We need to be able to discern between what’s real and what’s fake, and having a safe space to meet and transact will be crucial.

When the Internet first came out, threat actors exploited the average human’s unfamiliarity with the tech by creating malicious sites that impersonated banks to obtain financial details. Phishing scams like this still occur, albeit we now see more sophisticated forms of social engineering. The Metaverse is like a whole new Internet, and you can guarantee that people’s unfamiliarity with it, both businesses and consumers, will be exploited.

Cyberattacks Via Vulnerable AR/VR Devices

Other cybersecurity risks within the Metaverse abound such as cyberattacks via the use of vulnerable AR/VR devices, as an entryway for evolving malware and data breaches. These devices inherently collect large amounts of user data and information such as biometrics, making them attractive to hackers. Concerns around data privacy are also a growing voice amongst Metaverse skeptics, with additional data being collected through avenues like Second Life, potentially violating user privacy.

Organizations will need to be much more reliant on their partners around the world to help mitigate risk, as this is very much a global phenomenon. But there will always be some risk and for those that take them and get it right, there will be huge rewards. At the end of the day though, businesses won’t be able to do it themselves, it will take a great deal of partnering with organizations that work within that space. The Metaverse will hit everyone, and there’s no denying that mistakes will be made, similar to those that were made in the early days of the Internet.

Supply chain attacks aren’t new. If the past couple of years have taught businesses anything, it’s that the impact of supply chain cyber attacks is now, universal, from the fallout of the SolarWinds software breach, to the exposed Apache Log4j vulnerability and Kaseya last year. Unfortunately when such supply chain attacks hit smaller businesses who are usually the suppliers to larger enterprises, their impact is especially prohibitive.

For SMBs already feeling the prolonged impact of the pandemic, the added pressure of dealing with sophisticated and frequent cyber attacks in real time, are a heavy burden, as they try to protect their business against financial, legal and reputational damage, as well as their own suppliers and larger clients’ security. It is now more important than ever for SMBs to implement strict security hygiene and effective cybersecurity processes to ensure their business is prepared for the event of cyber attacks happening.

SMBs as an indirect avenue of cyber attacks

The reality is threat actors have taken advantage not only of the now-entrenched remote working model to target organisations, but also the usual limits preventing SMBs from bulking up on their cyber security defenses, mainly lack of budget and expertise. SMBs often do not have a dedicated IT or security department, meaning with no in-house security expertise and reduced focus on security patching, these companies are easier to socially engineer and infiltrate. Adding to this, SMBs usually have employees doing multiple roles, and thus a wider access to valuable areas of the business and information is given to them, and so if breached, they pose a  threat to multiple areas within the business.

Ram Narayanan, Country Manager at Check Point Software – ME

Threat actors often target SMBs as low hanging fruit for their vital role in supply chains. This is especially so as such attacks wreak havoc on not only one organization but entire businesses within the supply networks. By leveraging tactics such as phishing, cybercriminals gain access to an organization to launch a malware attack, steal data and credentials or instigate a ransomware.

The key factor to preventing cyberattacks is threat prevention. With minimal time and lack of cyber expertise or manpower, SMBs must adopt a prevention mindset to minimise potential cyber attacks and threats.

Why cybersecurity readiness is paramount for SMBs

Beyond the immediate financial impact and reputational blow as a trustworthy, reliable partner, SMBs can also face legal or regulatory repercussions, operational disruption, flow-on costs for system remediation and cyberattack response, customer churn, and the loss of competitive advantage that can make or break a smaller business. In fact, a tarnished reputation as an avenue of attack can be even more detrimental to an SMB organisation, as the loss of trust with a larger organisation could mean a loss of potential business and revenue down the line with them or other new, potential customers.

How SMBs can prevent supply chain attacks

By applying stronger cyber defences, SMBs are in a position to provide larger organisations with assurance that larger companies they supply to will not be compromised via the SMB partner or third-party vendor.

Whilst there are multiple means to prevent such supply chain attacks, the first step is to have good software capable of covering the entire company, protecting the company’s endpoints and devices, supported by regular backups so that, in the event of a cyberattack, they have the possibility of restoring all the data.

A viable option for SMBs is to also consider engaging an experienced Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), who will have the skilled resources, updated security software and experienced expertise to monitor for and analyse threats on behalf of the SMB player. This is especially useful for SMBs who have neither the time nor resources to adequately enforce threat detection and response.

Partnering with a cybersecurity expert equipped with best-in-class security and scalable solution such as Check Point Software can put SMBs in good stead to protect against the most sophisticated attacks and generate trust among larger potential players.

Speak about the partnership that Check Point Software can offer to enterprises in their digital transformation journey

At Check Point Software we aim to extend architectural assistance to organizations to support their development of a proper strategy for this journey. Check Point Software understands that cloud transformation is a complex undertaking, and knows the value our customers place in our architectural workshops. Because of this, Check Point Software offers a Cloud Transformation Security Consultancy service designed specifically around cloud transformation. This service provides an efficient and thorough platform for transitioning corporate security programs to a digital future. Our advisors help customers understand the security design patterns of multiple cloud use cases (Public/Private IaaS, security of cloud, and through cloud, and many more).

Ram Narayanan, Country Manager at Check Point Software – ME

Discuss the role of cloud and its services in digital transformation

Cloud adoption has grown rapidly in recent years. While many organizations were already moving to the cloud, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this transition. With the normalization of remote work, companies needed to be able to support and provide critical services to their off-site workforce. As a result, over 98% of organizations use some form of cloud-based infrastructure, and over three-quarters (76%) have multi-cloud deployments composed of services from two or more cloud providers. These cloud environments host critical business applications and store sensitive company and customer data.

Some of the key benefits from moving to the cloud include:

• Shifting business models from Capex to Opex, so that companies pay only for what they use, be it IaaS, PaaS or SaaS.
• Scalability, where computing, network, and storage capacities can be increased
• Agility, where developers can make continuous improvements
• High availability, disaster recovery, and redundancy are improved by cloud vendors

How do you distinguish between Check Point Software and its competitors in offering cyber protection?

Check Point Software Technologies provides cyber security solutions to corporate enterprises and governments globally. The company’s solutions protect customers against Gen V, zero-day attacks with an industry leading catch rate of malware, ransomware and advanced targeted threats. Check Point Software’s Gen V protection is focused on attack prevention, to stop attacks from even entering networks, and speed of response. We address organizations’ most imminent cyber security needs based on three core principles:

• Prevention-first approach: It deploys pre-emptive user protections to eliminate threats before they reach the users
• Gold Standard Management: Single pane of glass to manage the entire security estate
• Consolidated Solution: A unified cybersecurity approach that strengthens defenses while improving agility against all forms of attack

Elaborate on the opportunities of SMEs and large enterprises while choosing to transform digital applications and devices

Digital transformation empowers organizations to expand business opportunities, increase profitability and efficiency, while reducing operational costs. However, digital transformation can also expose enterprises to a variety of vulnerabilities and challenges that if not properly addressed could result in financial loss, identity theft, and leakage of private and sensitive information.

Tell us about the anti-phishing and ransomware strategies enforced by Check Point Software in favor of its customers

Phishing is one of the most talked about cyber-attack, and for a good reason. It can come in many shapes and forms, as it is constantly evolving and introducing new ways of tricking users using their biggest weakness – their human nature. Check Point Software’s anti-phishing solutions includes different products to address different attack vectors from which phishing attacks come:

• Harmony Email & Office – It deploys between the inbox and its native security
• Harmony Endpoint – Zero-Phishing identifies and blocks the use of phishing sites in real time
• Harmony Mobile – Check Point Software’s Zero-Phishing technology for mobile devices. It allows organizations to combat zero-day phishing attacks by inspecting the web page itself and making an informed determination as to whether it is a phishing site or not

Check Point Software’s Anti-Ransomware, a ransomware protection solution, protects organizations from the most sophisticated ransomware attacks, and safely recovers encrypted data, ensuring business continuity and productivity.

Rafi Kretchmer, VP of Product Marketing at Check Point Software Technologies commented, “most mobile security solutions that are on the market today can only scan files that are related to the mobile operating system, such as apps and iOS profiles. This does not protect your mobile from other malicious file types such as executables, MS Office files, PDFs and more. As we are becoming more reliant on mobiles, cyber criminals are increasingly targeting them and so it has never been more important to have a robust mobile security solution that protects you from any type of file.”

According to Check Point Research (CPR), almost all organizations (97%) have faced mobile threats from all vectors over the last two years with one of the most overlooked vectors being file download.

An official release stated, “Harmony Mobile’s new File Protection works by leveraging Check Point’s Threat Cloud to scan downloaded files for malicious intent. If an intent is found, the download will be completely blocked, and the malicious file never reaches the device. On Android handsets, Harmony Mobile can also scan files in the mobile’s on-device storage and will alert both user and admin if any malicious file is found.”