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reviewer2054484 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Cybersecurity Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
A non-technical person can start creating custom rules using GSL Builder in about a week, but the vendor is slow to fix bugs
Pros and Cons
  • "The posture management and remediation features are the most valuable. We use GSL Builder to build custom rules in alignment with our organization's policies. CloudGuard has canned rules using multiple standard frameworks, but we also have additional rules."
  • "When rules change, it messes up the remediation. They haven't found a fix for that yet. The remediation rule goes into limbo. It's an architectural design flaw within their end compliance engine—a serious bug."

What is our primary use case?

We use CloudGuard to monitor the cloud IaaS, AWS, and Azure security postures, including cloud assets' configurations. Based on the framework in the rulesets, it will give us failing, passing, or partially compliant scores. It allows us to implement auto-remediation and guardrails. 

If a user exposes storage on the public internet accidentally or purposefully, a daily report is sent to the account owner. CloudGuard will automatically fix the issue if auto-remediation is appropriate. We have GCP, AWS, and Azure accounts. CloudGuard is a SaaS solution, and we onboard all our AWS accounts, whether public, private, or hybrid.

How has it helped my organization?

In our sandbox environment, auto-remediation kicks in, and everything is fixed. Users try to do it themselves but often don't know how because they're not trained to provide cloud support. We don't currently use complete remediation, which will break their production environment, but we're getting better by nagging the cloud account users. Our cybersecurity team can use the shared response score to encourage cloud account owners to fix the problem.

CloudGuard has specific instructions for how users should fix issues, but it's like pulling teeth sometimes. Users often don't respond, and we get to the point where we need to tell them that it's going through change management and we can't renew it. We will auto-remediate in production environments if they don't respond by that date. 

It helped some cloud deployment users understand how to improve security posture, but not all of them. It depends on whether they are reading the CloudGuard reports daily. Many don't want to manage that part, and we believe our cybersecurity will help fix that for them.

We automated account onboarding. When a user wants a new cloud account, the automation scripts kick in after the request is approved to create the cloud account. After the provisioning is completed, the account is onboarded into CloudGuard. It enables us to have full coverage because CloudGuard monitors all our organization's cloud accounts.

I wouldn't say that CloudGuard has freed up staff for other projects. I have two or three dedicated SecOps people to monitor and follow up with remediation when auto-remediation isn't possible. We also deal with CloudGuard account requests and just-in-time user account access. It's difficult to assign a specific user to view the cloud accounts only they can see. 

I'm an SME for the product and train people annually because SecOps folks come and go. So far, we have had this software for three years. A lot of other organizations will switch solutions after two or three years. Training is essential because it's a high learning curve for people unfamiliar with the cloud. I don't think CloudGuard has made it more accessible. While it has decreased the resources, we still need at least one full-time admin dealing with CloudGuard, especially with the bugs.

We saved some time. We always go for a Unified Enterprise Platform. In terms of Cloud Security Posture Management, we wanted an enterprise solution with GCP, AWS, and Azure support, so we chose CloudGuard.

What is most valuable?

The posture management and remediation features are the most valuable. We use GSL Builder to build custom rules in alignment with our organization's policies. CloudGuard has canned rules using multiple standard frameworks, but we also have additional rules. Building custom rules with GSL Builder is medium difficulty. They have several examples of other compliance rules you can use. The GSL documentation is decent. A non-technical person can learn to use GSL Builder in about a week. GSL Builder saved us time and reduced human error. 

The auto-remediation works when it works. It does its job and is based on the rule instead of the alert's severity. In our company, we say, "Okay, this rule is a high severity. We don't want the data to be exposed on the internet." For example, if someone puts a public IP on our database, we will set a rule to shut it down immediately. That's how we define remediation. 

It isn't based on the severity or the level of work. Some rules may be defined as lower severity by default, but they might be higher depending on the organization's policy. It kicks in when there's an alert matching the remediation rule. The effectiveness of the remediation is 50%. Some of their bots used to fix issues automatically need to be updated. We had to make a few custom changes to some bots because they don't wake up.

What needs improvement?

CloudGuard's effective risk management only scans accounts every hour. We have more than 150 AWS accounts and 20 Azure accounts. We sent Check Point a request asking them to increase the frequency to five to fifteen minutes. I want the flexibility to scan it as often as possible based on the account's importance. That part is lacking. 

When rules change, it messes up the remediation. They haven't found a fix for that yet. The remediation rule goes into limbo. It's an architectural design flaw within their end compliance engine—a serious bug. We must spend extra time reapplying the rule when they periodically update the compliance presets. Auto-remediation breaks if you're using that particular out-of-the-box rule. I haven't experienced this recently, so maybe they fixed that part. However, that's what it did in the past.

Check Point is slow to respond to bugs. They resolve bugs maybe once every two weeks, and their R&D is slow. They're in Israel, and it's not just the Israeli holidays. I would probably pick a large US company if we did this over again. 

They don't give us continuous feedback. I want live feedback when they change something. Stop breaking things. The company should let us know what they're doing when they add new features. They don't have an official beta program, so you can't test the new features. 

That's the other bad thing about this product, but I don't know about other Check Point products. They're a firewall company but not a software company. If you put out a beta, customers should have the option to test it and give feedback. I've been putting a lot of work into CloudGuard to fix all the bugs. They should have paid me to fix their bugs for them.

They need to decrease their bug resolution time. Anything longer than two weeks is problematic. It's why we don't jump into the deep end with all these other features they've added. Our primary feature is the CSPM cloud part. The solution is useless if the reporting or remediation breaks, as it has in the past. It requires an SME for CloudGuard to dig in deeper, which takes time away from our SecOps folks.

Buyer's Guide
Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
823,795 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using CloudGuard for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

CloudGuard is pretty stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

CloudGuard is scalable. I don't need to worry about it.

How are customer service and support?

I rate Check Point's support a seven out of ten. They respond within a day. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?


How was the initial setup?

Setting up CloudGuard is straightforward, and it takes a few days. We handled the deployment in-house with two full-time employees. It's a SaaS solution, so the only maintenance required is backups. 

What about the implementation team?

We implemented this solution in-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing of CloudGuard increases annually, and we don't see the value because we don't use all the features. We're primarily using CSPM and maybe Workload Protection. We did the Kubernetes part and used Network Explorer as a one-off. We only used Network Explorer for diagnostics. 

We use the Intelligence module for CSPM but don't analyze network traffic with CloudGuard. It's an expensive subscription, so we don't use the intelligence part.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Palo Alto Prisma Cloud and Twistlock. Back then, the solution was owned by an independent company called Dome9, and Check Point acquired them. It had the best rule set out there. We chose it because it had all the rule sets out of the box and supported GCP, Azure, and AWS. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Check Point CloudGard Posture Management a seven out of ten. CloudGuard does its job, but the remediation is not perfect. Other CSPM tools do a better job of using remediation exclusion rules, especially scanning and putting out reports at a custom frequency versus every hour.

If the price isn't an issue and you don't care about using all the features, it's an okay product for enterprises to use to cover all cloud IaaS. If you're thinking about implementing CloudGuard, you should consider two things. First, the price is marked up every year by 10-plus percent, whether you use a particular feature or not. It's an annual subscription model, so you can always cancel at any time. 

Second, you should think about the modules. Workload Protection is okay if you use Kubernetes. You can use intelligence if you need to analyze traffic within your cloud environment for regulation-specific reasons, but it will cost you extra. CloudGuard's strong suit is that they support a lot of the features and AWS cloud assets.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Sailas Jose - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager at Federal Bank Ltd
Real User
Top 5
Provides a unified platform, no agents required, and has good visibility
Pros and Cons
  • "The visibility in our cloud environment is the most valuable feature."
  • "We have concerns regarding the pricing and would appreciate seeing some improvements."

What is our primary use case?

Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management is utilized to monitor our various cloud-related portals on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and other platforms. This solution offers a unified console to manage all the servers and provide us with comprehensive details.

How has it helped my organization?

We can automate certain aspects of our security through Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management. However, complete automation is not possible due to the dependencies of the applications installed in the cloud VMs.

The agentless workload posture enhances the compatibility of our VMs since there's no requirement to install any agents or assign write permissions. This approach also simplifies management, reduces the need for multiple levels of approvals, and eliminates the necessity of installing anything on our servers.

Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management saves us time by enabling communication with all of our devices within a span of two days.

CloudGuard Posture Management's unified platform has saved our organization time when dealing with our cloud environment.

What is most valuable?

The visibility in our cloud environment is the most valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

We have concerns regarding the pricing and would appreciate seeing some improvements.

For how long have I used the solution?

We are currently conducting a POC with Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management and have been testing it for one month.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would give the stability an eight out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is on the higher end.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
823,795 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Associate Director at Virtusa Global
MSP
Top 20
Provides a complete overview of all our cloud security solutions, supports a wide range of automation capabilities, and reduces effort
Pros and Cons
  • "I can take proactive actions based on an alert without having to interact with the platform directly."
  • "Adding a feature that allows me to easily identify the changes that have been made to the CIS benchmark and update my own policy accordingly would be a valuable addition to Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management."

What is our primary use case?

We are a multi-cloud service provider that leverages all major cloud providers, such as AWS, Azure, GCP, and OfficeLab, for our internal consumption and for our customers. Managing and monitoring the compliance of the platform across hundreds of accounts can be challenging, especially without a solution like Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management, which continuously scans and alerts us against policy violations. If the policy is violated, we are alerted, the issue is identified, and we are assisted in resolving it.

How has it helped my organization?

It is easy to write custom rules and policies using the GSL Builder. We do not need to learn any programming language or structured query language to write back queries. GSL Builder enables us to click and drag to build our own rules. For example, if we want to fetch all the servers that are accessed publicly, we can simply put down the servers where access is public. GSL Builder creates an easy-to-use interface so that administrators no longer need to know a specific language to make this happen. Therefore, once the query is ready, we can quickly test it to check its effectiveness, modify it quickly, and then start using it.

Non-technical people can learn to use the GSL Builder in less than ten hours.

We have reduced human error using GSL Builder by 20 percent. For example, if I have to write a query, I could make a typo or omit spaces, which could cause the query to be structured incorrectly. With GSL Builder, the only thing humans need to do is drag and drop logic from existing utilities. This means that I can simply click and select when to perform an action, and the system will generate the query for me. This reduces the amount of human input required and, consequently, the likelihood of human error.

The GSL Builder has saved us a significant amount of time. What used to take several hours now only takes a few minutes to complete.

Automatic remediation is very helpful. When an alert is raised, it allows us to trigger bots that can automatically fix the issue. For example, if I'm granting server access to the public, I can create a remediation rule to monitor this. If the rule is violated, the bot will automatically disable public access. This has been very efficient for us.

We have created custom policy checks for our organization, leveraging industry standards such as CIS and SIPAA. We also perform custom assessments against the policy based on our regulatory requirements. Overall, this helps us to mitigate risks and ensure compliance integrity. It also helps us to build cloud solutions correctly and detect and respond to unauthorized authentication changes and security compromises.

Unified Security Management provides a single pane of glass view, eliminating the need to toggle between different consoles and service providers to get a complete picture of our security landscape. The solution provides all the answers we need on a single dashboard. Simply connect to the portal to get all the information we need. For example, if we need to understand the details of a specific cloud, such as its name, configuration, and additional attributes, we don't need to log in to the cloud or another service provider. We can simply look up the server within the Unified Security Management dashboard.

Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management has helped our organization achieve almost 100 percent compliance from zero visibility. I'm proud to say that we upgraded hundreds of thousands of tools and assets against the policy set, and we are now close to 99.6 percent compliant. CloudGuard Posture Management has been very effective for us. In an ever-changing landscape, we ensure that we meet our compliance requirements. Once we have achieved compliance, we can change our policies to make them more stable, and then we strive to meet those standards again.

We have strong in-house capabilities and a team of developers who have a deep understanding of CloudGuard Posture Management. Using the solution's APIs, we can automate our security. We have been able to segregate workloads, accounts, and assets by department, business, cloud provider, and responsible stakeholders. We can then secure these assets according to our internal business requirements. All of this has been achieved and made possible by the CloudGuard Posture Management platform.

The best thing about agentless workload posture is that it doesn't impact our production workloads. Other solutions install agents on our system and continuously scan them, which can sometimes cause performance problems. CloudGuard Posture Management, on the other hand, takes a snapshot of our current workloads and scans it offline, which is a more efficient process.

The solution has helped us reduce our compliance and audit activities. I used to spend a week capturing all the data required for an audit and now I can do it in a couple of hours. With a click of a button, we can run reports to show auditors our compliance for anything in the last run mode. We can also download, share, and view all the details, including how many views are assessed against an account, the outcomes, and the current posture. All of this information is clearly presented in black and white, so we don't have to manage any data ourselves. If we want to report against certain clients, such as those covered by HIPAA, we can get a comprehensive report that we can easily share with our auditors.

CloudGuard Posture Management has reduced a lot of effort. Before implementing the solution, I had to write a separate script for each platform. Once I had the data, I needed to spend time understanding the output of the scripts and identifying the compliance aspects of compliant assets. I also had to segregate the data for all clouds and then work on it. Finally, I had to repeat the same exercise to see if things had remained secure. This was a very tedious process, but CloudGuard Posture Management has saved us a lot of time.

CloudGuard Posture Management has saved our SecOps team time. It is connected to our alerting systems and is accessible to all of our security teams. This includes the security team, the operations team, and the backend team. All of these teams have access to the solution and can see the changes that they are implementing and whether or not they are segregating properly. They are also constantly monitoring the alerts that are raised to take corrective action.

What is most valuable?

Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management provides a complete overview of all our cloud security solutions. It offers a single-pane-of-glass view of our entire cloud inventory across all cloud service providers.

Another advantage is that CloudGuard Posture Management supports a wide range of automation capabilities and has access to APIs that we can leverage. For example, I can take proactive actions based on an alert without having to interact with the platform directly.

What needs improvement?

The ability to help organizations modify their own policies is essential. For example, consider the CIS benchmark 1.5 for AWS. In the past, I would have added the CIS rulesets to my custom policy, along with my own rules for Internet requirements. This created a custom policy that was tailored to my specific needs. However, the CIS benchmark is constantly changing, and it can be difficult to keep my custom policy up-to-date. As a result, I now have to recreate my entire policy whenever the CIS benchmark is updated. This is a time-consuming and manual process. Adding a feature that allows me to easily identify the changes that have been made to the CIS benchmark and update my own policy accordingly would be a valuable addition to Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management. This would save me a significant amount of time and effort.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management for seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

Check Point's support needs improvement. Given our extensive knowledge gained over the years, my team has found that we get better support from Check Point's higher-level team than from their basic support team. We only reach out to Check Point support for serious issues, such as product bugs or encounters. We find that basic support is not adequate and that we only get proper support when our issues are escalated.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment was straightforward. Two admins from our organization along with some solution architects and one consultant from Check Point helped us with the proof of concept, and we were able to acquire the solution after the POC.

What was our ROI?

We have seen close to a 40 percent return on investment with Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is extremely competitive.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management ten out of ten.

If an organization is in the market for a cloud security solution, then it needs a solution like CloudGuard Posture Management. Otherwise, if they are sticking to a specific platform or to a specific service provider like AWS, their tool sets and their solution will be focused on one platform. If they go to Azure, GCP, or any of the other cloud providers, they will be limited. Therefore, I believe that a solution should have flexibility and the ability to function across multiple clouds. Additionally, it should be a solution that grows and evolves. In the time that I have seen Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management, it has grown leaps and bounds and has always stayed ahead of its time. For example, even if an organization has a unique need, CloudGuard Posture Management likely has an academic solution built with the platform. I have not seen this kind of responsiveness from other products.

Our company is spread across four different cloud platforms, which are located in regions around the globe. All departments use these platforms, which include 550 employees.

I highly recommend Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management. It has been very helpful to our organization, and we have gained many benefits from it. We have had a positive experience with Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
CIFO at Crisp System India Pvt Ltd
Real User
Top 10
Cost-effective, and stable, but the solution should provide a single integrated view
Pros and Cons
  • "This solution helps to keep everything visible, and it also alerts us if something is wrong, such as if someone opened extra ports or services that they are not supposed to. This is a valuable tool for monitoring and maintaining our cloud environment."
  • "Check Point must provide a multi-cloud facility where AWS, Azure, and GCP can seamlessly work together and display posture in an integrated manner."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to protect workloads and users on the cloud, including both internal and external users. The solution must monitor user roles, the overall posture of the cloud application, and database and web servers that are exposed to the internet. It is an improvement over the default Amazon AWS security posture because it is sensitive to the context in which the application is being used, such as whether it is being used by a public user or an internal user who is managing the system on the cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

We used on-premises solutions until recently. However, we are now moving to the cloud for all of our applications. Posture management tools are now essential, and we must have them, regardless of whether they are from Tenable, Check Point, CrowdStrike, or another vendor. This solution is cost-effective, so we chose it, but we may change it in the future.

What is most valuable?

Embedded machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide in-line real-time attack prevention is most valuable. This is because analytics and machine learning capabilities come much later. In a high-volume situation, things can go bad quickly. Therefore, an in-line alert mechanism is much better than any other.

Visibility is the most important part. On the cloud, shared resources can make it difficult to see all of the resources that are deployed. This solution helps to keep everything visible, and it also alerts us if something is wrong, such as if someone opened extra ports or services that they are not supposed to. This is a valuable tool for monitoring and maintaining our cloud environment.

The solution is also capable of controlling resources, but this is a highly controversial and context-aware area. If the platform takes too much control, it could potentially stop our applications from working. Therefore, we limit its use to monitoring and visibility only.

What needs improvement?

Check Point must provide a multi-cloud facility where AWS, Azure, and GCP can seamlessly work together and display posture in an integrated manner. Instead of showing separate AWS, Azure, and GCP environments, the solution should provide a single integrated view. This will make it easier to decide which issues to fix first and will reduce the amount of technical work required.

Check Point is always adding new features. However, we are sometimes confused about how to use the features that are already available. There are so many features and we are unable to use all of them.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have only been using Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management for a very short time, not even a year yet. Earlier, we were not using the cloud very much, so there was no need for such a product. However, after we shifted a few of our applications to the cloud, we started using the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has been quite stable for the past year. However, I cannot say how it will behave in the future, as it may experience a bigger load and a wider variety of workloads. The stability of the solution is subjective and will depend on the specific environment in which it is used.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not yet tested the solution at that scale. It is just a starting point. We may add more applications and more load to it. We will have to see how scalable the solution is.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good. They sometimes call people from outside India to help us, because we are longtime Check Point customers. We have been using their hardware, software, and firewalls for about two decades. This solution is a new addition to our support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We are still using a variety of firewall solutions, including Juniper and Cisco, throughout our organization. As a government organization, we are required to purchase the cheapest option available. Therefore, we must utilize the solution that is the most affordable in each case.

How was the initial setup?

I am involved in the deployment of the solution. I am not the technical hands-on person for this project. I manage the deployment process.

What was our ROI?

It is very difficult to measure the return on investment for security measures. Security is not an investment in the traditional sense, as it does not generate direct revenue. Instead, security is a safety measure, similar to insurance. As such, it is difficult to quantify the ROI of security measures.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is difficult to contextualize the pricing because we are used to Indian pricing and licensing. In India, there is very little interaction with North America and the private sector regarding pricing.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated all the firewalls including Juniper and Cisco.

What other advice do I have?

I give Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management a seven out of ten.

The solution claims to provide a unified platform that integrates all security capabilities. However, there are on-premises issues, cloud issues, and hybrid issues that make this impossible. No tool can ever provide such capability.

We are not a small office. Therefore, I have no experience with how the solution helps small offices. However, for us, the solution only helps us with our cloud posture management. We still use different tools on-premises. And maybe in the future, we will go directly to the cloud.

I have doubts about the value of looking for the cheapest or fastest firewall. There is always someone who is coming out with a new product that is faster or cheaper than the current one. However, it is important to consider the overall security capabilities of a firewall, not just its speed or price. A firewall that is slower because it is doing more analytics may actually be more secure than a faster firewall that does not do as much analysis. The best firewall for you will depend on your specific needs and requirements.

This is my first time at an RSA conference, and I find it very confusing. There are too many vendors, too many products, and too much to see. I only had a few hours to visit today, and it was overwhelming. I think the conference would be better if it were split into two or three parts, with one part focused on the Asia Pacific and another part focused on North America. Most of the vendors here are focused on North America, so it would be helpful to have a dedicated space for vendors from Asia Pacific. I will try to visit the RSA conference in Singapore next year, and I hope it will be more manageable.

The RSA does not impact our cybersecurity solution purchases. The Indian government's procurement process is completely independent of vendors and their products. Our purchases are based on our needs and requirements, and the solutions must be supported in India.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2386959 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Consultant with 5,001-10,000 employees
Reseller
Fair price, great dashboards, and fantastic for identifying misconfigurations
Pros and Cons
  • "The rulesets and the findings are valuable. The actual core functionality of it and the efficacy of events are great."
  • "The setup can be better. With every other Check Point product, the setup is scripted. You just approve versions, and then you are off. The setup for this solution is still very much manual. I would like to see that transition to more of a scripted setup."

What is our primary use case?

We are a VAR. We use posture management in various client environments for different assessments. 

We do not use it internally. We use it in multiple client environments. We have different types of client environments with different sizes.

How has it helped my organization?

It is great for identifying misconfigurations. That is the part that I love about it.  It is very good at finding that needle in the haystack. It gives you an overall posture for every little thing, and if you dive into it and look at some of the findings, you start seeing that you have one or two servers that are misconfigured, and you have an open BLOB, open storage instance, unsecured web portal, or something else that you did not know about. 

The effectiveness of its Cloud Security Posture Management for providing compliance rulesets and security best practices is great.

Its Cloud Security Posture Management helps identify the risks that are most critical to our clients relatively quickly. I cannot put a number on that, but not having to go through every little configuration on every asset would probably save a week's worth of effort for the smallest client. 

Its traffic monitoring capabilities are good. Helps visualize traffic flows and possibly exposed assets.

The actual setup is pretty manual. It takes about an hour or two, depending on the client you are working with.

What is most valuable?

The rulesets and the findings are valuable. The actual core functionality of it and the efficacy of events are great. There is some triaging, but in terms of findings, it does seem to find the needle in the haystack.

The dashboards specifically are great. By just logging in and going into the portal, we can see the high-level dashboard views. We are able to dive into whatever we want to see there, and that is fantastic.

The network mapping and the traffic flow map, where it shows you which VMs might be possibly exposed, are also very valuable. It shows which systems might have direct access to the Internet and which systems do not. It shows you overall how the network flow is set up based on your security groups, routing, and everything. I have got a good use out of that.

What needs improvement?

The setup can be better. With every other Check Point SaaS product, the setup is scripted. You just approve deployment scripts,  and then you are off. The setup for this solution is still very much manual. I would like to see that transition to more of a scripted setup. That has been an issue when I set up a client because every client has different skill sets.

The general reporting also needs improvement. It is very cumbersome to pull the reports for big environments. I had a client environment with 50 tenants, and I had to manually run a CIS report for each tenant and download it. There were 50 different reports. I wish there was a way to get the reports for all 50 tenants in one report and not 50 different reports.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with posture management for 3 to 4 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I never had stability-related issues. That has always been fine.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. You can do it, but you need to redo the setup for each and every additional account and visibility. It is scalable. It is just not quickly scalable.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate their support for CloudGuard CNAPP a eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have not used a posture management solution before.

How was the initial setup?

Its setup is very manual. I would like to see that transition to more of a scripted setup. It is a very manual process. For the most part it is fine however I have definitely had issues with it. Sometimes, it just does not work, and I have had to open tickets.

What about the implementation team?

I am an integrator and consultant.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Its price is very fair.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

N/A

What other advice do I have?

To the new users of this solution, I would advise not following the built-in guide while setting it up. Always open the admin guide for the most up-to-date information.

Overall, I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. Even with all the issues, what you do get out of it is very valuable. The reporting and the setup are holding it back from a ten. That is where it can be improved greatly.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
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Gian Marco De Cola - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Security Specialist at Unipol Assicurazioni S.p.A.
User
Top 20
Good visibility and management with helpful visibility into permissions
Pros and Cons
  • "The various CNAPP modules have granted more visibility of our cloud applications to our system engineers and developers."
  • "The costs are really high if you want the entire capabilities of the platform."

What is our primary use case?

We have used CNAPP on our OpenShift test cluster but are planning to deploy it in our production clusters. We used CNAPP to enhance the visibility of our cloud-deployed applications. It offers various modules to do so. For example, the Posture Management module shows you exposed secrets and security misconfigurations and also gives you hints and ready-to-use JSON configuration files to fix them. 

Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) gives you visibility and management automation of identities, roles, entitlements, and privileges in your cloud environments. This helps you find and fix identity- and role-related security holes by constructing a complex privileges graph, which shows you granted permissions and enforced ones, suggesting you enforce the stricter and more secure enforced ones over the ones you granted.

How has it helped my organization?

The various CNAPP modules have granted more visibility of our cloud applications to our system engineers and developers. Doing so helps our transition to the cloud by making the management and administrative tasks of our cloud and system engineers easier, as well as suggesting and helping to prioritize patching and updating.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features include the Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) module, Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), and Cloud Workload Protection (CWP).

What needs improvement?

The costs are really high if you want the entire capabilities of the platform. However, it is really motivated by the great value of the product. Moreover, you can buy individual licenses for the different modules if you don't need some of them.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for one year.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Director of Cybersecurity at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
User
The benefits were immediate, effectively providing compliance rule sets and security best practices
Pros and Cons
  • "Cloud security posture management is the feature we've been using the longest."
  • "The platform would be significantly enhanced by incorporating data security management capabilities."

What is our primary use case?

We use Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP for the application protection of our assets on Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.

We implemented CloudGuard CNAPP to address data exposure, prevent exfiltration attempts, ensure compliance with frameworks like SOC 2 and PCI DSS, and gain improved oversight of our cloud environment.

How has it helped my organization?

We haven't had any cloud security incidents since implementing CloudGuard CNAPP in 2017. It's been a critical tool as we've grown our cloud usage, transitioning applications from data centers to the cloud. CloudGuard's scalability has kept pace with our growth. As the third-largest enterprise user of Azure, our cloud footprint is significant.

The benefits of CloudGuard CNAPP were immediately apparent upon deployment. Back in 2017, we found ourselves needing to catch up on securing our existing AWS assets. We required a solution that offered quick implementation and usability. CloudGuard was the first platform we considered, and we've continued to expand its use alongside Check Point's ongoing development of new capabilities.

We create custom rules to address our organization's unique security policies, in addition to leveraging the built-in rules within CloudGuard CNAPP's CSPM module. This flexibility is crucial for us.

While CloudGuard CNAPP's CSPM capabilities effectively provide compliance rule sets and security best practices, it's important to understand that this is just one aspect of achieving full alignment with security frameworks. To be fully compliant, additional measures outside of CloudGuard need to be addressed and implemented. However, CloudGuard CNAPP remains a valuable piece of the puzzle.

CSPM helps us identify the most critical business risks. It's a time-saver that translates into cost savings. CSPM provides insights from multiple perspectives. We can analyze what a breach would mean for the business, including brand reputation and the significant cost and time required for recovery. Even in terms of day-to-day operations, CSPM saves us employee hours by streamlining security tasks.

The security provided by the CWP for containers is good. We are extremely satisfied.

Our CI/CD environment utilizes some scanning capabilities offered by workload protection, but it's not fully integrated. This creates limitations in proactively identifying issues before deployment. When we do use the workload protection capabilities they are critical for us.

What is most valuable?

Cloud security posture management is the feature we've been using the longest. What we particularly like about it is the rule-based capability. This allows us to develop our own custom rules using the GSL language provided by the CloudGuard platform.

What needs improvement?

The platform would be significantly enhanced by incorporating data security management capabilities.

I'd like to see CloudGuard offer more agentless functionality beyond what's currently available.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP for over seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP is extremely stable and if there is an issue, Check Point is on top of it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP is scalable. We haven't run into any scale issues and we have scaled significantly over the last six years.

We plan on expanding it into some of the newer capabilities that Check Point is coming out with.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment was straightforward. As a SaaS platform, it is extremely easy to deploy it into environments.

We can deploy CloudGuard CNAPP and use it out of the box within hours.

Our initial strategy was to implement a basic solution and then expand its capabilities over time. Check Point, frankly, has done an excellent job of keeping its platform up-to-date by continuously adding and improving features. This is why we're still using it even after six years.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP nine out of ten.

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP is predominantly owned by and controlled by the central security organization within our company.

Details matter. When comparing features to other security solutions on the market, the ability to develop custom rules is important to us, along with security posture capabilities. The ability to scale flawlessly is also important to us. The direct and overwhelming support that we received from the Check Point account team, the support team, and the leadership team has been fantastic.

Integrating with the cloud through APIs offered by a SaaS platform has significantly reduced the burden on our organization by eliminating the need for all the complex backend work we previously had to handle. This experience highlights the importance of embracing new ways of doing things.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Christopher Federico - PeerSpot reviewer
VP Sales, MSSP and MDR at Torq
Real User
Top 20
Makes the findings actionable and helps with compliance and threat hunting
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the ability to work with the APIs to integrate into our own backend systems."
  • "The reporting has a lot of opportunities to continuously improve so that we can continue to show value."

What is our primary use case?

One use case was for compliance. The second one was for workload protection, and the third one was for threat hunting in the cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

We are able to meet compliance very easily, and we are able to feel a lot more comfortable with the fact that when we have developers deploying things in the cloud, the right guardrails are in place. 

CloudGuard CNAPP's Cloud Security Posture Management capabilities are top-notch. We use it for misconfiguration and compliance reporting. I would rate it an eight out of ten for that. It is quite good.

We use CloudGuard CNAPP's Workload Protection capabilities. The security that it provides is very good. We like it because we are able to do it in both runtime and with Kubernetes Guardrails.

Threat intelligence is another piece that we use, and it is awesome because it lets us do a lot of threat hunting that we were not able to do before, especially in AWS.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the ability to work with the APIs to integrate into our own backend systems. 

The threat intelligence is quite unique because we could not find another vendor that had the ability to make all the findings actionable. They have this thing called Event Risk management, and it consolidates things down to make it easy for us to take action on it.

What needs improvement?

The reporting has a lot of opportunities to continuously improve so that we can continue to show value.

I would love to see more ability to automate and integrate into even more systems for automatic remediation.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP for three and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very rare to have an outage.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It scaled up for us for hundreds of accounts.

How are customer service and support?

They are pretty good, but I wish they had people who are a little bit more knowledgeable at the first level. I would rate them a seven out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used Palo Alto's Prisma Cloud. We switched because it did not have the feature sets we were looking for. The price was not very flexible, and we did not get the type of support we needed. It was not like the support that we get from Check Point as our partner.

How was the initial setup?

Its deployment is very straightforward.

What was our ROI?

We definitely got an ROI. I do not have to put as many people as I did before with Prisma Cloud. I need two full-time employees less than Prisma Cloud to work on it.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Wiz, and we looked at Orca. Prisma was our incumbent, but ultimately, we picked Check Point based on the outcomes we were able to get in our proof of concept, and we felt that the support was much better.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP a nine out of ten. It is a pretty awesome product, but there is always room for improvement. I would have rated everything else we tested a six out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.