Check Point Aims to Unify IT Security Management

At a Check Point Experience (CPX) 2017 conference today, Check Point Software unveiled a unified Infinity Architecture that promises to enable IT security teams to be more responsive to threats while also reducing the total cost of IT security operations.

Darrell Burkey, director of intrusion prevention system (IPS) Products for Check Point Software, says Infinity Architecture provides a common management plane across all Check Point security software spanning clouds, networks and endpoints. Instead of having a separate management console for each class of security technology, Burkey says, organizations will be able to seamlessly navigate between various IT security tasks.

“This will make security teams dramatically more efficient,” says Burkey. “We think it’s a phenomenal advance.”

Because the Infinity Architecture integrates management functions, Burkey says it’s now possible to remediate vulnerabilities in a matter of minutes even when it involves a zero-day threat. Once detected by a Check Point threat intelligence service, an alert about that attack is then distributed across a federated framework of Check Point Security software, says Burkey.

Burkey notes that a common management framework built around a consistent user interface will also make it simpler for cybersecurity professionals to fill in for each other in the event of an emergency. Today, many cybersecurity professionals face a major challenge when they have to learn how to navigate an unfamiliar product during an attack in progress, says Burkey.

Given the general shortage of cybersecurity professionals, Burkey says organizations need a common management framework for IT security operations so they can get the most out of what limited cybersecurity professional resources they do have on hand. In fact, given the sophisticated nature of the threats organizations face, Burkey says silos of IT products and technologies wind up creating seams in an organization’s defenses that cyber criminals can exploit.

There may never be perfect IT security. But as IT security technology continues to evolve, the windows for IT security mayhem to be perpetrated appear to be starting to finally close.