Most firewalls enable you to export a syslog file of filtered TCP/IP traffic, but many of them don’t include the tools such as a network traffic log to index and analyze firewall events. To get the benefits of a quality log analyzer, organizations are forced to either purchase these tools separately or build them in-house using open source tools that are difficult for your lean IT team to maintain.
Outside of the impracticality of sourcing a compatible log analyzer for visibility into your new firewalls and the colossal task of building your own, your network administrators have limited bandwidth, and many organizations can’t afford the additional investment for the full visibility they need.
Your Firewall Should Come with a Clear Pane of Glass into Your Network Traffic
When you buy a set of Check Point gateways and the requisite management server, however, you also gain several software “blades” or modules that you can utilize with the firewalls themselves. Your already-pressed IT team shouldn’t bear the burden of sourcing tools that your firewall should come with in the first place.
The Check Point Logging and Status Software Blade transform data into security intelligence using SmartLog, an advanced log analyzer that delivers search results providing real-time visibility into millions of log records over multiple time periods and domains.
Check Point Logging vs the Traditional (and Generic) Network Traffic Log Analyzers
SmartLog has an excellent “Google-like” interface that enables you to perform Boolean searches. Instead of having to filter for a specific event, or sift through vast logs of information, you can find a specific incident quickly using human language searches. One of the best features of SmartLog is the ability to index of hundreds or thousands of log files instead of having to painfully search through individual files. No other company comes close to the analysis features of SmartLog.
The SmartEvent Blade is a Check Point Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system. SmartEvent consolidates the monitoring of events, the log collating and correlating, and the reporting of events for you. This acts as a virtual Security Operations Center.
Replacing the expertise of a full team with the toolset required to correlate events, SmartEvent packages security alerts into a dashboard to notify you what requires immediate action and what is effectively “noise.”
Gain Unprecedented Visibility into Your Network with Check Point
SmartEvent and SmartLog don’t just analyze firewall data. The software blades also analyze Intrusion Detection events, Website Filtering, Data-loss Prevention, and Mobile Security. All of these software modules are indexed into a central platform, enabling your cybersecurity team to easily target an incident through a single pane of glass.
The best part is that the implementation and maintenance of the SmartLog and SmartEvent blades requires a minimal amount of effort. Instead of spending days or weeks tuning a logging or reporting platform, you can instead focus on what matters—which is securing your company.
This post was contributed by ADAPTURE Senior Solutions Architect Jacob Hunt. With more than 10 years of networking and security for large enterprises, Hunt helps ADAPTURE clients implement the cybersecurity solutions they need.
