Check Point Firewall-1 Administration Guide [Paperback]

Marcus Goncalves (Author), Steven Brown (Author)

Book Description

Series: Networking | Publication Date: September 1, 1999

This text provides instructions on installing, administering, and maintaining Check Point's FireWall 1 product. The book includes real world scenarios of corporate intranet/internet security threats and solutions, while the CD-ROM features tools and utilities.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Check Point FireWall-1 is big and highly capable but hard for the uninitiated to figure out. Check Point FireWall-1 Administration Guide does a competent job of scratching the surface of this popular piece of security software. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered--any single volume would have to--but what's here is enough to help you get the software installed and initially configured in all standard situations.

Authors Marcus Goncalves and Steven Brown--Goncalves has a particularly strong reputation as a firewall guru--describe sound practices for formulating security policies, then implementing those policies as FireWall-1 rules. Coverage focuses on Windows NT installations of FireWall-1. Unix gets some attention, but practically all the screen shots show a Microsoft operating system.

The most interesting parts of this book have to do with how FireWall-1 identifies and reacts to specific kinds of attacks. For example, the authors explain how the FireWall-1 INSPECT engine, faced with attempts to overwhelm a protected machine with unresolved connection attempts (a SYN flood), can use SYNDefender Relay or SYNDefender Gateway to intercept or monitor requests and acknowledgments. They typically map packet exchanges with simple but effective transmission diagrams consisting of ASCII characters. The coverage of VPNs involving mobile users and their implementation with SecuRemote also is strong. --David Wall

Topics covered: Firewall rationales, FireWall-1 installation, rule sets, virtual private networks (VPNs), and how FireWall-1 behaves under specific kinds of attacks.

From the Back Cover

Your Indispensable Guide to Installing and Maintaining Check Point FireWall-1

Check Point Systems, the leader in security solutions and perimeter protection, has created the #1 firewall used in most corporate networks worldwide. If you are an engineer or network administrator, you know how difficult it is to find the facts you need to implement this new technology--and you don't have the time to search through manuals and documentation. With this unique guide, you can find the most current and comprehensive information on Check Point's FireWall-1--all in a single volume.

The authors clearly explain the underlying concepts of protection that all security professional should know. Using a hands-on approach, the authors guide you through the complex process of designing, building, and maintaining firewalls using Check Point's FireWall-1.

Check Point FireWall-1 Administration Guide covers three key aspects of this product:
*FireWall-1 Overview & Configuration, covering firewall technologies, Check Point's Stateful Inspection and FireWall-1 installation and configuration
* Fire Wall-1 Administration, discussing all the topics of a security policy, creating objects used in a security policy, some FireWall-1 advanced security features and Virtual Private Networking
*FireWall-1 Advanced Topics, including Check Point's OPSEC standard, fault tolerance, load balancing and advanced general firewall security topics

Throughout the book, extensive case studies discuss the many security threats to corporate Intranet and Internet sites--and show you how to avoid them using FireWall-1. You'll also find an invaluable CD_ROM that contains an evaluation copy of Check Points's FireWall-1 product, so you can see the benefits of this great product for yourself.

Check Point FireWall-1 Administration Guide is ideal for administrators and professionals who need to install FireWall-1 for Windows and UNIX. It is the single most up-to-date resource for the latest information on firewall security.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007134229X
• ISBN-13: 978-0071342292
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,091,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This book is an insult., December 29, 1999

By 

Kevin Tsai "kekezinho" (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Check Point Firewall-1 Administration Guide (Paperback)

I'm a systems consultant and have worked with a number ofdifferent firewall products including FireWall-1. FireWall-1'snetwork address translation feature is very powerful if you manually set up network objects and the local.arp file and configure the NAT rule. This book does even touch on these aspects; the Arch&Admin (that comes with the Firewall-1 CD) explains this in detail in 65 pages. *Copied from the CD documentation: for example, the discussion on SYN Flooding Attack (pages 138-143) is mostly taken WORD-FOR-WORD from Arch&Admin (pages 329-333). Many examples are copied verbatim. *PPTP is not secure relative to alternatives - why recommend it? I thought the authors were veterans. *Checkpoint's OPSEC makes FireWall-1 extensible, and a couple of the add-ons such as RealSecure (attack recognition) and StoneBeat (high availability) are very complementary products. I'd expect professionals who'd write a book on FireWall-1 to have experience in these add-ons. *Of the 450 pages, only the first 306 pages are FireWall-1 related; the next 100 pages (Chapter 13) are on generic Internet attacks - which many books cover more in content and detail. Balance is glossary and index (that's over 10% of the book). *Stripping down NT: the first thing you should do before installing FireWall-1 on NT is strip all the services from the network control panel applet. I guess the authors didn't even bother to copy Joe DiPietro.

This book does not cover anything on FireWall-1 that the software documentation from Checkpoint does not cover. As a matter of fact, Checkpoint's documentation covers much more depth AND breadth than this book. From what I understand, the only documentation on FireWall-1 that is better than Checkpoint's is Checkpoint's Hebrew version of the documentation.

For the price of this book, I'd expect more in-depth coverage on the technical deployment of the product (for the technical implementor), on the strategic deployment of the product (for the CIO), or both. This book provides neither. Stick with the CD's documentation.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A beginners guide to FW-1, December 8, 2000

By 

Ben Rothke "Author of 'Computer Security: 20 ... (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Check Point Firewall-1 Administration Guide (Paperback)

I was looking forward to a book about CP FW-1, but was let down with 'Checkpoint Firewall-1 : Administration Guide'.

Goncalve's writing style is a bit choppy and there is not a lot of information in the book that is not easily available elsewhere.

For those who have never touched a firewall, the book may be a good start. But for an average FW-1 admin who has already configured FW-1, it is unlikely the book will add much to their skill set.

The book does not really have anything in it that the Checkpoint documentation hasn't already covered. Between the FW-1 mailing list and the book is not a compelling buy.

For those who really need to know firewalls 'Building Internet Firewalls' by Elizabeth Zwicky <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/15659287176is a much better and cheaper choice. Even though Zwicky's book really does not get into any FW-1 details, it provides a comprehensive overview of how to set up and implement an effective firewall.

But for those that don't have hands-on access to a FW-1 installation, the book is a start.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent introductory book for Firewall1, January 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Check Point Firewall-1 Administration Guide (Paperback)

I've been working with CheckPoint Firewall-1 for about a year now, and while I have only installed a few firewalls, the book does an excellent job of covering what to do. I think the title, an administrator guide, is exactly that, an administrator guide, the authors show completely how to install/setup and configure a rule base, and in a very simple to understand manner. I think it takes someone that has worked with a technology a long time to show how to do it simply. If you've been doing firewalls a long time, no, you don't need the book, the manuals are fine, but I also have CheckPoint documentation, 5 books, 10+ web html docs, and hundreds of simple how-to's from web sites, having most of it in one book does save some carrying. I disagree with some reviewers commments about PPTP, it doesn't show how to setup PPTP on the firewall, just how to pass it through, and yes, PPTP has a large market share, so it is definitely something that needs discussing. All in all, it is a good book, and if some people were disappointed, couldn't they just send the book back.