Intrusion prevention system

Intrusion prevention systems (IPS), also known as intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS), are network security appliances that monitor network and/or system activities for malicious activity. The main functions of intrusion prevention systems are to identify malicious activity, log information about this activity, attempt to block/stop it, and report it.

Intrusion prevention systems are considered extensions of intrusion detection systems because they both monitor network traffic and/or system activities for malicious activity. The main differences are, unlike intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems are placed in-line and are able to actively prevent/block intrusions that are detected. More specifically, IPS can take such actions as sending an alarm, dropping the malicious packets, resetting the connection and/or blocking the traffic from the offending IP address. An IPS can also correct Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) errors, unfragment packet streams, prevent TCP sequencing issues, and clean up unwanted transport and network layer options.

Check Point

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. is an international provider of software and combined hardware and software products for IT security, including network security, endpoint security, data security and security management.

As of 2014 the company had approximately 2,900 employees worldwide. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, the company has development centers in Israel, California (ZoneAlarm), Sweden (Former Protect Data development centre), and Belarus. The company has offices in the United States, in San Carlos, California, in Dallas, Texas, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and Sydney Australia.

Check Point competes in the antivirus industry against AVG, Avira, ESET, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, Panda Security, Sophos and Symantec among others.

History

Check Point was established in Ramat-Gan, Israel in 1993, by Gil Shwed (CEO as of 2015), Marius Nacht (Chairman as of 2015) and Shlomo Kramer (who left Check Point in 2003). Shwed had the initial idea for the company’s core technology known as stateful inspection, which became the foundation for the company's first product, FireWall-1; soon afterwards they also developed one of the world’s first VPN products, VPN-1. Shwed developed the idea while serving in the Unit 8200 of the Israel Defense Forces, where he worked on securing classified networks.