This core course covers the fundamentals needed to deploy, configure, and manage daily operations of Check Point Security Gateways and Management Software Blades that run on the Gaia operating system.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• Describe the primary components of a Check Point Three-Tier Architecture and explain how they work together in the Check Point environment.
• Explain how communication is secured and how traffic is routed in the Check Point environment.
• Describe the basic functions of the Gaia operating system.
• Identify the basic workflow to install Security Management Server and Security Gateway for a single-domain solution.
• Create SmartConsole objects that correspond to the organization’s topology for use in policies and rules.
• Identify the tools available to manage Check Point licenses and contracts, including their purpose and use.
• Identify features and capabilities that enhance the configuration and management of the Security Policy.
• Explain how policy layers affect traffic inspection.
• Articulate how Network Address Translation affects traffic.
• Describe how to configure manual and automatic Network Address Translation (NAT).
• Demonstrate an understanding of Application Control & URL Filtering and Autonomous Threat Prevention capabilities and how to configure these solutions to meet an organization’s security requirements.
• Articulate how pre-shared keys and certificates can be configured to authenticate with third party and externally managed VPN Gateways.
• Describe how to analyze and interpret VPN tunnel traffic.
• Configure logging parameters.
• Use predefined and custom queries to filter log results.
• Identify how to monitor the health of supported Check Point hardware using the Gaia Portal and the command line.
• Describe the different methods for backing up Check Point system information and discuss best practices and recommendations for each method.

Topics:

1. Security Management
2. SmartConsole
3. Deployment
4. Object Management
5. Licenses and Contracts
6. Policy Rule and Rulebase
7. Policy Packages
8. Policy Layers
9. Traffic Inspection
10. Network Address Translation
11. Application Control
12. URL Filtering
13. Logging
14. Snapshots
15. Backup and Restore
16. Gaia
17. Permissions
18. Policy Installation

Exercises:

1. Deploying SmartConsole
2. Installing a Security Management Server
3. Installing a Security Gateway
4. Configuring Objects in SmartConsole
5. Establishing Secure Internal Communication
6. Managing Administrator Access
7. Managing Licenses
8. Creating a Security Policy
9. Configuring Order Layers
10. Configuring a Shared Inline Layer
11. Configuring NAT
12. Integrating Security with a Unified Policy
13. Elevating Security with Autonomous Threat Prevention
14. Configuring a Locally Managed Site-to-Site VPN
15. Elevating Traffic View
16. Monitoring System States
17. Maintaining the Security Environment

Working knowledge of Unix-like and Windows operating systems and TCP/IP Networking.