Enterprise network firewalls are critical to a cyber defense posture. The decision of choosing a firewall is based on multiple factors, including vendor reputation, operational flexibility, policy and firewall management capabilities, and price/value. Equally important are performance test results that help determine how well a given network security platform can detect and block the latest generation of attacks including zero day attacks – even under the most demanding network conditions.
By definition, in the first few hours of zero day attacks there are no known ‘signatures’ to immediately trigger threat intelligence alerts or inform firewalls of a stealth attack. Therefore, zero day campaigns are the most difficult to defend against in the first 24 hours that they are launched. This is when a firewall’s security efficacy and AI engines are put to the ultimate test.
Preventing attacks are critical, since a breach can result in data loss, credential theft, ransomware attacks, long term vulnerabilities, and loss of trust by customers, vendors, and investors. Significant consequences like these leave little room for error, making cyber security one of the most important business decisions. When choosing a solution, organizations cannot afford to miss vulnerabilities, as even a 90% block rate by a security provider can amount to hundreds or thousands of attacks missed.
For the second year in a row, Check Point achieves the highest scores in Miercom’s 2024 Enterprise Firewall Security Benchmark
Miercom, a leading security testing and certification lab, challenged the top five firewalls with the latest generation of cyber-attacks including new Zero+1* day malware and phishing.
The Key Result: Check Point led in all categories with a 99.8% malware block rate, 100% phishing prevention rate, and ultra-low 0.13% False Positive Detection rate (highest accuracy).
The research was conducted for both on-premises and cloud firewall solutions.
“Check Point did exceptionally well at blocking attacks in the first 24 hours, which is the window of highest risk for enterprises”, said Rob Smithers, CEO at Miercom.”
Rob Smithers adds, “Check Point’s industry-leading block rate enables enterprises to effectively prevent new malware from entering and spreading across their networks, servers, and endpoints – saving them time, money, stress, and resources”, said Rob Smithers, CEO at Miercom
Miercom testing included verifying the effectiveness of anti-virus, Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), anti-bot, URL Filtering (URFL), sandboxing, machine learning, and phishing protection.
Download Miercom report
The report includes the following highlights:
- Critical Prevention Rate in the first 24 hours: Check Point led in the group test for immediate prevention of total Zero+1* Day malware samples
- Best Block Rate at 99.8%: In the Zero+1 Day Malware Prevent (First to Block) Results, Check Point led with a 99.8% prevention rate while competitors were as low as 48%
- Lowest False Positive Rate at 0.13%: In False Positive Malware Detection Tests, where content is falsely reported as malicious, Check Point led the group with the lowest false positive detection rate which also means the highest accuracy rate.
- Top phishing prevention rate of 100%: In Phishing Prevention Tests, Check Point demonstrated the best overall prevention against phishing and malicious URLs, making use of advanced AI deep learning and global threat prevention. Competitor’s miss rates were as high as 469 per 1000 phishing attacks
- Missed Detections of Phishing and Malicious URLs
Check Point also ranked #1 in a separate Miercom assessment that evaluated the top Zero Trust Platforms. Vendors were scored based on two categories: 1) Security Admin and End User Experience (ease-of-use) and 2) Security Effectiveness.
* “Zero+1 Day” refers to new malware, within their first 24 hours upon first detection.
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