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.

I have a team that manages CloudGuard for me. We have different research centers using various cloud accounts and are trying to consolidate everything into a single landing zone to protect those areas. From a use-case perspective, I have different laboratories or research centers utilizing it for various purposes. We are mostly focused on AI, and some of those requirements cater to the AI segment as well.

From a protection perspective, Check Point is a well-renowned name. We are also using other products from Check Point, such as Harmony, Infinity, and XDR. We have a consolidated view of the overall security posture, which I find quite interesting.

CloudGuard WAF protects our applications against threats without relying on signatures. This is crucial for us to maintain application security and stop the threats coming into our environment, keeping our production part secure.

Check Point CloudGuard WAF works well for preemptively blocking Zero Day attacks and detecting hidden anomalies. It is the best. That is why I am paying for it.

Check Point CloudGuard WAF helps us with overall application and cloud API security. The consolidated view of the security posture that Check Point provides is very useful from an upper management perspective.

CloudGuard WAF has helped reduce our false positive rate by 30%.

From a security perspective, it is quite good. I am not very familiar with the detailed features of it because I have a team that manages it. 

I am pretty happy with the current version. I have not yet used it to its full potential, but there could be improvements as I explore it further. I am content with what I have in terms of features and support, but if I start expanding the usage, I might need more help from them. I already have the best consultants from Check Point. 

I have been using this solution for around seven or eight months now.

I have not observed any stability issues yet. It has been pretty reliable.

The scalability is excellent and is one of its best features.

Customer service is one of the best in the market right now.

Positive

We did not use a similar solution previously. 

We have a hybrid deployment model with AWS as the cloud provider. 

Its deployment was smooth. We did not have any issues. 

We used Check Point for the implementation.

It has been only six or seven months now. I am hoping that by the time I complete one year, I will see the return on investment.

It has reduced the total cost of ownership for our web application firewall to a certain extent, but I do not have the numbers.

The sales team or account managers from Check Point are top-notch. As I am using other products as well, my pricing was competitive compared to others.

I considered other solutions. I decided on Check Point because of its comprehensive suite of applications and the integration with my tools, providing a consolidated view of my security posture.

I would rate Check Point CloudGuard WAF a nine out of ten. I believe there is always room for improvement, but there are use cases I have not yet explored. 

I use the solution for almost all of our web servers.

Before CloudGuard, we periodically had some website issues. Since we've had CloudGuard, we've never had these issues happen again. 

The rate limit feature is the most useful feature of the product.

We don't need to rely on signatures. We are protected when the signature doesn't exist. 

It can protect against zero-day attacks and hidden anomalies. It blocks items that would affect the company.

We've been able to reduce our false positive rate. It took a bit of time, however, not long. We're near zero false positives. 

The web user interface needs some improvement, even though the functionality is good. More user-friendly features could be added. Perhaps something between CloudGuard management and the virtual appliance on-site could be faster. 

It could be interesting to have an app for smartphones to manage all the cloud environments.

I have been using the solution for three years. 

The stability is always good. 

The scalability is always good.

I rate the solution nine out of ten. I am satisfied. It is always good. 

We primarily use Check Point CloudGuard WAF for web application security. It protects applications from various threats and vulnerabilities like SQL injections, cross-site scripting issues, and cross-site request forgery. We ensure proper security policies and logs are maintained.

CloudGuard WAF helps by providing advanced protection for web applications and APIs, defending against the OWASP top ten scenarios, and offering comprehensive AI-driven behavior analysis. This assistance in data protection is vital for financial domains such as banks.

One of the best features of CloudGuard WAF is its user-friendly GUI dashboard. It's easy for beginners in security to understand and set policies. The solution's easy access and AI-driven behavior analysis for real-time threat detection are also highly valuable.

Support could be improved, particularly in terms of availability. Although they provide 24/7 support, there are sometimes delays in delivering solutions. Advanced bot protection has recently been improved, which has helped a lot.

I have been using the solution for over four to five years, working as a project manager and handling implementation projects. We are primarily focused on Check Point CloudGuard implementations.

I would rate the stability of the solution as a nine out of ten. The solution is quite stable.

In terms of scalability, I would rate it a nine out of ten. The solution is highly scalable.

Customer service is satisfactory yet requires some improvement. I would rate support as an eight out of ten, as there is room for enhancement.

Positive

I have experience with other WAF vendors such as Imperva and Imperva WAF, which are leading products in India and have a significant presence in the US and UK.

The initial setup is generally straightforward, yet it can vary depending on the client's platform and whether deployment occurs on-site or remotely.

We have a team of around 25 engineers; 50% handle project implementation, while the other 50% provide post-deployment support.

Return on investment is seen when data is properly organized, and the ability to show reports to top management ensures that their expectations are met.

Pricing is average—not too expensive, yet not cheap either. CloudGuard offers bundled packages, which may reduce costs compared to paying for individual features as opposed to other providers.

I have evaluated solutions like Empower and EmpowerVac, which are leading WAF products in India and other countries.

I would definitely recommend Check Point CloudGuard WAF to other users due to its availability, scalability, and support. These aspects contribute significantly to receiving new contracts and maintaining client referrals.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

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.

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.

It's our cloud security tool for management solutions. We have tenants on the web portal and other systems, which are part of the POC activity. We haven't bought it; they just put it on the computer today.

It has helped us to improve our security posture by providing us with a centralized platform for managing security across all of our cloud environments. It has also helped us to save time and money by automating many of our security tasks.

I find the configuration and real-time monitoring features valuable.

It doesn't detect user activity like some of its competitors. It's not a vulnerability, but it's a legitimate activity that it doesn't detect. It only detects vulnerabilities or misconfigurations.

Additionally, Zenix features are not handled or captured.

We just had a POC for CloudGuard. It's only been two or three months.

It is a stable solution. We didn't face any downtimes. 

It is scalable enough for our use case. 

The customer service and support were very good.

Positive

We had POCs from different vendors. We haven't used any other solution before. This is our first time trying a cloud security solution.

There were a few reasons. First, we are from India, and Check Point has a strong presence in the Indian market. Second, we needed a solution that could support multiple cloud environments, including Azure, AWS, and Oracle.  

The initial setup is a straightforward process. There were no difficulties. 

It took us one to two weeks to deploy it. We have deployed it in AWS and Oracle cloud. 

The pricing is competitive compared to other solutions on the market. So, the licensing cost is average. 

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.