Check Point offers security appliances

Check Point has expanded its small and midsize business offerings with two multifunction security appliances that can be managed remotely in large numbers for corporate settings with many small sites.

Check Point has expanded its small- and midsize-business offerings with two multifunction security appliances for corporate settings with many small sites that can be managed remotely in large numbers.

Called Safe@Office 500 and 500W, the devices add intrusion prevention and content filtering to earlier Safe@Office models. They also include a firewall or VPN and gateway anti-virus software.

The devices are based on Check Point’s enterprise-class VPN-1, Firewall-1 and Application Intelligence software, and support the company’s Secure Remote desktop client, which can be downloaded from the device. They compete against low-end boxes from Watchguard Technologies, SonicWall, Juniper Networks and others.

Check Point includes support for a separate hot-spot security zone in the 500W appliance so it can be used in a retail setting, for example, where store owners want to offer customers Internet access but keep that traffic segregated from business traffic. The device supports WPA 2 wireless security.

The intrusion-prevention software can scan for specific protocols to block peer-to-peer and instant-messaging traffic. The devices support up to 10 virtual LANs (VLAN ).

Each device can be bought in a standard configuration or with a power-pack add-on. The power pack includes the secure hot-spot wireless feature, VLAN and dynamic routing support, and a high-availability port to let customers tie two boxes together so one can take over if the other fails. The power pack also boosts the firewall or VPN throughput from 100M and 20M bit/sec to 150M and 30M bit/sec respectively. It also increases the number of simultaneous remote-access VPN connections on base models from five to 25, the number of site-to-site connections from two to 15 and the number of managed VPN tunnels from 10 to 100.

The basic models are suitable for corporate settings that need remote access, such as retail stores making calls to check on credit card information or inventory, says Peter Cresswell, national practice manager for security services at Bell Business Solutions in Canada. The company uses the Check Point appliances to support its Managed Security Service, he says.

The power-pack options are more suited to a small business with fewer than 200 employees that uses the device for its main firewall, Cresswell says. When used in conjunction with Check Point’s Security Management Platform, a corporation could deploy security to branches where there is no onsite IT staff, he says. Bell Business Solutions preconfigures its Check Point appliances and ships them to customers for installation. The devices then connect to the management platform in Bell’s network, he says.

Check Point also is introducing two update services for anti-virus and intrusion-prevention signatures and content filtering.

Standard models of Safe@Office 500 cost $300 ($500 for the wireless version) for five users to $1,000 ($1,150 for the wireless version) for unlimited users. Service packs cost an extra $500 each.

Anti-virus and intrusion-prevention services cost $180 to $450, depending on the number of users, and content filtering costs $50 to $300, also depending on the number of users.

The two boxes and services are available this month.