The Check Point ThreatCloud

Check Point ThreatCloud is a dynamically updated service that is based on an innovative global network of threat sensors and organizations that share threat data and collaborate to fight against modern malware. Customers can send their own threat data to the ThreatCloud and benefit from increased security and protection and enriched threat intelligence. The ThreatCloud distributes attack information, and turns zero-day attacks into known signatures that the Anti-Virus Software Blade can block. The Security Gateway does not collect or send any personal data.

Participation in Check Point information collection is a unique opportunity for Check Point customers to be a part of a strategic community of advanced security research. This research aims to improve coverage, quality, and accuracy of security services and obtain valuable information for organizations.

The ThreatCloud repository contains more than 250 million addresses that were analyzed for bot discovery and more than 2,000 different botnet communication patterns. The ThreatSpect engine uses this information to classify bots and viruses.

For the reputation and signature layers of the ThreatSpect engine, each Security Gateway also has:

• A local database, the Malware database that contains commonly used signatures, URLs, and their related reputations. You can configure automatic or scheduled updates for this database.
• A local cache that gives answers to 99% of URL reputation requests. When the cache does not have an answer, it queries the ThreatCloud repository.
  • For Anti-Virus - the signature is sent for file classification.
  • For Anti-Bot - the host name is sent for reputation classification.

Access the ThreatCloud repository from:

• SmartConsole - You can add specific malwares to rule exceptions when necessary. From the Threat Prevention Rule Base in SmartConsole, click the plus sign in the Protection column in the rule exceptions, and the Protection viewer opens.
• ThreatWiki - A tool to see the entire Malware database. Open ThreatWiki in SmartConsole or access it from the Check Point website.

Data which Check Point Collects

When you enable information collection, the Check Point Security Gateway collects and securely submits event IDs, URLs, and external IPs to the Check Point Lab regarding potential security risks.

For example:

<entry engineType="3" sigID="-1" attackName="CheckPoint - Testing Bot" sourceIP="7a1ec646fe17e2cd" destinationIP="d8c8f142" destinationPort="80" host="www.checkpoint.com" path="/za/images/threatwiki/pages/TestAntiBotBlade.html" numOfAttacks="20" />

This is an example of an event that was detected by a Check Point Security Gateway. It includes the event ID, URL, and external IP addresses. Note that the data does not contain confidential data or internal resource information. The source IP address is obscured. Information sent to the Check Point Lab is stored in an aggregated form.

Updating IPS Protections

Check Point constantly develops and improves its protections against the latest threats. You can immediately update IPS with real-time information on attacks and all the latest protections. You can manually update the IPS protections and also set a schedule when updates are automatically downloaded and installed. IPS protections include many protections that can help manage the threats against your network. Make sure that you understand the complexity of the IPS protections before you manually modify the settings.

Note - To enforce the IPS updates, you must install the Threat Prevention Policy.

To update IPS Protections:

1. In SmartConsole, click Security Policies > Threat Prevention.
2. In the Threat Tools section, click Updates.
3. In the IPS section > Update Now, from the drop-down menu, select:
   • Download with SmartConsole - If your Security Management Server has no internet access.
   • Download with Security Management Server
   • Offline Update - If you want to manually upload the file. Select the required file for the update and click Open.
4. Install Policy.

Note - From R77.20, IPS purge runs automatically after every IPS update. The Security Management Server saves only the versions from the last 30 days, and deletes the others.