Check Point UTM-1 450

Check Point's latest UTM appliances aim to deliver the same industrial-strength protection as its larger enterprise-level products, but at a price point more suited to mid-sized businesses. The UTM-1 450 is the entry point of this family of three and is recommended for up to 250 users.

The UTM-1 450 delivers eight key services, with Check Point's well-respected Firewall-1 at the top of the list. This can identify and control applications such as IM, P2P and VoIP. It's augmented by web URL filtering, a web application firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware and IDS, plus you get support for both IPsec and SSL VPNs. Note that full anti-spam scanning isn't included. For installation, simply point a web browser at the appliance's internal network port and follow the Quick-start wizard. This took us just five minutes, and then we used the internal and external ports to place the firewall in between our test LAN and the internet. The appliance has another port that provides DMZ services, while the fourth can be used to connect to another appliance for high availability.

Next, you download Check Point's SmartConsole from the appliance, which installs a range of utilities for managing and monitoring multiple Check Point appliances. By default, the appliance blocks all traffic, so we needed to create a firewall rule that allowed outbound traffic but blocked unsolicited inbound traffic. We used the SmartDashboard tool, which provides a neat row of tabbed folders for each function. We particularly liked the fact that you can create network objects, services, users and groups in the left pane and drag and drop them directly into the Security and NAT entries.

Anti-virus measures are courtesy of Computer Associates eTrust, and can be applied to web and mail traffic. For downloads and mail attachments, you can decide which file types to scan, or block and reject files over a certain size. SurfControl looks after web-content filtering and offers 40 URL categories that can be blocked or allowed. This is configured from the same section as the anti-virus functions, and you can add your own black and white URL lists. SSL VPNs add much value to the UTM-1 450, and Check Point includes a network extender for creating virtual connections. Firewall rules are used to control which LAN IP-based resources can be accessed.

Check Point's SmartDefense service offers protection against web and application vulnerabilities, worms and probes. It provides regular updates to the appliance along with security advisories and best practices. The Program Advisor uses a program database to identify malicious and safe apps. When an end-user application first accesses the network, the appliance will block it if it's deemed unsafe or apply access rules. You can access all the SmartDefense features from the SmartConsole and set up different protection profiles for each gateway.

Despite the huge range of security features on offer, we found the UTM-1 450 easy to deploy and configure. Anti-spam isn't on the menu, but otherwise Check Point provides a powerful network-security solution that includes a raft of sophisticated monitoring and reporting facilities. It's pricey for the size of business it's aimed at, though, with the annual SmartDefense subscription further inflating the price to $9,700 (around £4,892).

Author: Dave Mitchell