Interview with Michael Shaulov – Head of Mobility Product Management at Check Point Software
During last Mobile World Congress we had a brief chat with Michael Shaulov, responsible for the Mobile section at Check Point and founder at Lacoon, the company -now owned by Check Point- that developed the attack prevention technologies now integrated in the Mobile Threat Protection packet.
Good day Michael, we are here at the MWC and everybody talks about mobile, but a recurring theme in our interviews is security. Which is the natural habit of Check Point…
Sure, Check Point with its products covers all possible needs in terms of security, from endpoint protection to messaging, up to mobile, naturally. Our products offer an integrated experience for whichever device you work with and in particular mobile device protection -which is more and more difficult and actual, also given the context we are talking about- is one of our points of strength.
How was the integration of the product developed by Lacoon, where you come from, and the world of Check Point?
Very well, actually. Today the package called Mobile Threat Protection is perfectly integrated with the Check Point offer and in particular with the products of the Check Point Capsule family, which offer an integrated and completely separated user experience also in a BYOD context.
How does your Mobile Threat Prevention protect the user?
First of all, it analyzes in an advanced manner each app to identify known and unknown threats. Then it monitors network activity to identify suspect behaviours and reduces the attack surface by identifying weak points and unpatched bugs of the Operating System. It’s available both for iOS and Android and leverages cloud services to identify, for instance, 0-day attacks, in addition to menaces coming from WiFi networks.
According to your point of view, do attacks to companies come from the mobile world?
According to our statistics, in the last trimester of 2015 60% of security problems have been orchestrated outside of the company perimeter. And in this sense mobile devices are naturally the main cause of the problem.
Is your solution suitable only for enterprise environments or can it be adopted by SMBs, too?
Our Mobile Threat Prevention app starts with a minimum of 30 users, so it can be implemented in small companies too. It can be licensed per user or per device, and it’s sold as a SaaS, therefore with a monthly fee. The same holds for the products of the Capsule family, like the vastly appreciated Workspace.