Check Point unveils world’s fastest firewall

Cybercriminals will now have to catch up to Quantum Lightspeed, the world’s fastest firewall, unveiled last week by Check Point Software Technologies, a leading provider of cyber security solutions globally.

The firewall, launched during Check Point’s annual customer and partner event series CPX 360, is claimed to deliver 20 times better price-performance than competing vendors. The unveiling coincided with Check Point’s first rebrand in nearly 30 years, and a review of planned innovations for 2022.

In a keynote address entitled “You Deserve the Best Security”, founder and CEO Gil Shwed, said: “Today, more than ever, the online puzzle needs to be secure. The level of sophistication of attacks keeps going up. Gen V attacks are something we experience every day: supply chain attacks, ransomware threats that can take down an entire hospital or an entire oil pipeline for half of the US, and vulnerabilities like we have just seen last month with Log4j. When we look at 2021, it was one of the most challenging years in terms of cyberattacks. “

“You Deserve the Best Security” was also the tagline for the company’s new logo and marked a new strategic drive by Check Point to urge organisations to implement comprehensive “prevent-first” security solutions capable of dealing with the cyber pandemic, said Shwed. 

“All of the attacks through 2021, from Solar Winds to Log4J, were Gen V multi-vector attacks. In the face of such threats, organizations can no longer afford to compromise on security. Second best is not enough. Second best doesn’t work. Second best will get you breached.” 

He said the Check Point Infinity architecture provides a unified solution for every possible threat, based on three pillars: Quantum to secure the network, CloudGuard for complete cloud security and Harmony for secure users and access, wherever they are, on all platforms and however they connect. Infinity Vision management software and the ThreatCloud are the brains connecting all the elements and ensuring protection in real-time, across all vectors.

The Quantum Lightspeed firewall technology for data centres, he said, signalled Check Point’s determination to confront the evolving threat landscape in the light of the 50% year-on-year increase in cyber-attacks uncovered in the company’s 2022 security report. The new solution was the result of a collaboration with ASIC developer Nvidia, a company that has a long-standing relationship with Check Point.

“Quantum Lightspeed represents the latest innovation in our Quantum portfolio, and through increased throughput, ultra-low latency and better price performance, aims to kickstart the biggest network security revolution in more than a decade,” said Shwed. 

Check Point chief product officer Dr Dorit Dor sees the introduction of the Nvidia GPU, with its enhanced processing power, as a key part of the company’s drive to make great use of AI in securing networks, to deliver real-time prevention of Gen V attacks. She said: “We need to stay ahead of the emerging threats and for that we need evolving technology that can identify and emerge alongside the threats. So, we are designing AI into our next generation firewall. We see ourselves evolving in terms of how to leverage GPUs in order to accelerate the AI calculation.”