Check Point Launches New Infinity Architecture, Brings Together Security Portfolio Under Single Platform

Check Point Software Technologies is taking on a new security architecture approach with the launch Thursday of Check Point Infinity, a platform that brings together the company's broad set of security offerings.

Check Point unveiled the platform at its Check Point Experience 2017 event, held in Las Vegas this week.

The platform includes Check Point's technologies for security management, mobile, cloud, threat prevention, and its network security appliances. While Check Point had all of these technologies before, Gabi Reish, vice president of product management and marketing, said the Infinity platform "advances it to the next level," as the company rolls out new platform-based messaging and technology enhancements across its portfolio.

[Related: Q&A: Check Point Sales Chief On A Big Business Realignment And Competing Against Palo Alto Networks]

"We need to build ourselves for the future. … The future of cybersecurity is happening today," Reish said. "The architecture we think is the right architecture to facilitate this mission. It's all about Check Point Infinity."

Check Point Founder and CEO Gil Shwed said the new approach is designed to prepare partners and customers for the future of cybersecurity, including more sophisticated attacks, mobile threats, and making sure security protections are extended to the cloud. Shwed said disparate security offerings are more costly and not as effective for preventing security threats as a unified platform.

The focus of Check Point going forward will be to secure every environment, including the cloud, mobile and the data center, as well as future environments such as the Internet of Things, automotive, industrial and national security, Shwed said.

"We have already seen that the future is here. We need to handle it and I think we are all a very important part of moving our world to a better place, a safer place. … It's our responsibility to really get the best security to every environment we operate in and to make it a little bit better world," Shwed said. "We have the solution now and I think we can all use it and take security to the next level."

Check Point is the latest security vendor to roll out a unified security platform approach, adding to Palo Alto Networks, FireEye, Fortinet, Sophos, Symantec, McAfee and others.

The platform has three main pillars, Reish said: a single security platform for the sharing of resources and threat intelligence, a pre-emptive threat prevention focus, and a consolidated system that provides a single pane of glass for management, policy and threat visibility.

Alongside the launch of the overarching Infinity architecture, Check Point unveiled multiple technology updates across its stack. The company rolled out an updated security management console, called R80.10, that adds new next-generation policy management, automation and integrated threat management capabilities on top of its R80 management console.

Check Point also boosted its cloud security capabilities, adding vSEC auto-scaling for Microsoft Azure and extending its security automation capabilities, previously only available on the private cloud, to public and hybrid clouds. Check Point also said it had extended its cloud security offerings to the Google Cloud Platform.

For mobile, Check Point added Sandblast Mobile to its portfolio of Sandblast offerings, extending the threat prevention platform to mobile devices. The company also added mobile integrations with Blackberry, Microsoft Intune and XenMobile. In addition, the company boosted its Sandblast threat prevention portfolio overall with the launch of an anti-ransomware agent, which includes both ransomware prevention capabilities as well as file recovery. Finally, Check Point updated its appliance line with the launch of the 44000 and 64000 appliances, two ultra-high-end security gateways.

Jeff Mullarkey, CEO of Chicago-based RKON, said he "loved the message" around the Infinity platform. He said Check Point already had the strong security products from a technical perspective, and the new platform will help RKON position the platform to customers.

"It is perfect for the market," Mullarkey said. "It was the first time Check Point had this great strategic message. That was a business strategic message that it needed."

Mullarkey said RKON has already started selling with this approach, as customers demand a more consolidated and efficient security architecture. He said RKON and its customers have seen significant cost savings and security effectiveness gains as a result.

Joe Luciano, CEO of Access IT Group, a longtime King of Prussia, Pa.-based Check Point partner, said he also sees customers looking to consolidate the number of security vendors they work with. He said customers are looking for a better return on their security investment, as well as more effective security across their entire environments. While Check Point had all of the technologies in place already, Luciano said the Infinity platform and brand will allow partners to have an easier conversation around platform security.

"The technology won't change, but the reality is when you have a conversation, it's a lot stickier when you talk about Infinity versus [a broad portfolio]," Luciano said.

Luciano said he thinks the Infinity platform will give Check Point a leg up over its competitors, many of which have already come to market with platform approaches. He said Check Point has leading technology, as well as proven speed to market that will give it an edge now that it has a platform message around its technology.

"That's really where their advantage is over the competition. Now that they have more focus on marketing and getting the message out, they will have a better success rate in terms of sales," Luciano said.