Top 35+ Most Asked Checkpoint Interview Questions and Answers

1) What is spoofing? What is an example of spoofing?

The term "Spoofing" specifies a type of criminal behavior that includes a cybercriminal masquerading as a trusted entity or device to commit fraud. It is a cybercrime where someone impersonates a trusted contact or organization, pretending to be someone you trust, and tries to access your sensitive personal information. Any time an online scammer or fraudster disguises their identity as something else, it's spoofing. In this cybercrime, the attackers copy and exploit the identity of your contacts and disguise them as well-known brands or some trusted websites and networks.

In the spoofing attack, the attackers change the source address of an incoming packet and make it appear as if it is coming from a known, trusted source.

A good example of spoofing is phone spoofing. In this type of spoofing, a caller on the other end falsely introduces himself as a representative or an official bank authority and asks for your account details or debit or credit card information. Another example of spoofing is IP address spoofing, where hackers create Internet Protocol (IP) packets with a false source IP address to impersonate another computing system.

2) How can you prevent spoofing?

There are several smart security tools that security experts use to prevent spoofing. These smart security tools help us to prevent spoofing attacks. For example, a spam filter tool can check most phishing emails from reaching your inbox. Many organizations use preventing spoofing tools from keeping their users' credentials safe. Some network carriers also use similar software to block spam calls from reaching users' phones.

3) What is Anti-spoofing in Checkpoint Firewall?

Anti-spoofing is one of the most important features of the Checkpoint Firewall. It is a technique that is used for identifying and dropping packets that have a false source address. It protects the users from the attackers who create IP packets with spoof or fake source addresses and try to cheat people. By using this technique, security experts can check whether incoming traffic is legal or not.

4) What do you understand by Asymmetric Encryption?

Asymmetric encryption is a technique where two different keys are provided for encrypting and decrypting the message or packet. Here, one key is used for encrypting the message, and another is used for decrypting the message.

5) What do you understand by CheckPoint Firewall?

CheckPoint Firewall is one of the leading providers of Cyber Security solutions worldwide to companies and governments. It is used to protect against cyber attacks, such as ransomware, malware, and other types of common threats. A device can communicate with multiple networks according to the defined security policies. It is a barrier between private internal networks and the public Internet. The CheckPoint Firewall provides an architecture that secures all networks and clouds against any targeted attack.

CheckPoint Firewall provides us with next-generation firewall (NGF) functionality that includes the following services:

It provides internet access and filtering.
It can also be used to monitor and control an application.
It provides Mobile device and VPN (Virtual Private Network) connectivity.
It is used for identification and computer awareness
It prevents security threats and intrusion.
It is one of the leaders in the next-generation firewall space through a broad range of on-premises and virtual products that mainly targets small and midsize businesses as well as large corporations and telecom carriers.
There are more than one million companies around the world that uses CheckPoint Firewall protection.

6) Explain the 3-tier architecture components of the Checkpoint Firewall.

The Checkpoint components are based on 3-tier technology architecture. This 3-tier technology architecture is as follows:

Security Dashboard

Security Dashboard is a Smart Console GUI (Graphical User Interface) application that system administrators use to create and manage security policies.

Security Gateway

Security Gateway is a device used as a cyber barrier to prevent the entry of unauthorized traffic into an organization's network. It makes security policy for an organization and acts as an entry point for a LAN (Local Area Network). The Security Management Server manages it.

Security Management Server

System administrators use Security Management Server to manage security policies. It stores an organization's databases, security policies, and event logs. It is also used to store, manage and distribute the security policies to Security Gateways.

7) What are the main components of the CheckPoint solution?

Following is a list of the main components of the CheckPoint solution:

Internal Network
Internal and External Networks
Security Gateway
Security Dashboard
Security Management Server

8) What do you understand by a software blade?

A software blade is a security application or module, just like a firewall. Some good examples of software blades are Virtual Private Network (VPN) and Intrusion Prevention System (IPS).

9) What are the main differences between Stand-alone Deployment and Distributed Deployment?

We can use CheckPoint firewalls as a standalone system or as a distributed system. Let's see the main differences between them:

Standalone deployment	Distributed deployment
In the standalone deployment, both Security Management Server and Security Gateway are installed on the same platform.	In a distributed deployment, each component is installed on a different platform.
CheckPoint does not recommend this except for small businesses because it defeats the whole purpose of their three-tiered architecture.	CheckPoint highly recommends such a type of deployment.
In this deployment, Smart Console will be installed on a separate platform with access to the Security Management Server, so it can create policies and push them to the Security Gateway.	Distributed deployment is most commonly known as Three-Tier architecture. The Smart Console is generally installed on Windows so we can use it easily. Security Management Server can also be installed on Windows, Linux, or FreeBSD according to the requirement.

10) What is the main use of Identity Awareness Software Blade?

The most popular use of Identity Awareness Software Blade is allowing firewall configuration to enable access control for individual users and groups.

11) What do you understand by the Stealth Rule and Cleanup Rule?

Stealth Rule

The Stealth rule is mainly used to protect the checkpoint firewall from accessing the traffic directly. This rule is placed on the top of the security role base.

Cleanup Rule

The Cleanup Rule drops all traffic that does not match the Stealth rule and is Logged. This rule is mainly used for logging purposes.

12) What are the most popular connections allowed by the firewall?

The most popular connections allowed by the firewall are as follows:

VPN connections
Specified external connections
Connections to the DNS server
Connections to the servers in the DMZ
Connections from the internal network to the external network

13) What are the different types of Checkpoints?

Following is a list of the different types of Checkpoints:

Standard Checkpoint

The Standard Checkpoint is mainly used to verify a property value of an object in an application under test. All add-in environments support this CheckPoint.

Bitmap Checkpoint

The Bitmap Checkpoint is mainly used to check a bitmap of an image or the entire web page. It compares the actual and expected images pixel by pixel.

Image CheckPoint

The Image Checkpoint is used to check the properties of a web image, such as the source file location. This CheckPoint does not check pixels as Bitmap CheckPoint does.

Text CheckPoint

The Text CheckPoint is mainly used to check expected text in web pages and applications. It could be a small portion of text displayed or a specific area/region of the application.

Table CheckPoint

The Table CheckPoint facilitates users to dynamically check the contents of cells within a table (grid) displayed in their environment. It also checks various table properties, such as row height, cell width etc.

14) What is a Virtual Private Network or VPN?

A Virtual Private Network or VPN is an online medium that extends a private network across a public network and facilitates users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. A VPN from the public Internet can provide advantages of a wide area network (WAN). A user can access the resources available within the private network remotely using a VPN.

In other words, we can say that VPN provides a secure connection between two private networks over the Internet to communicate. This method uses encryption authentication to secure the data during transmission.

The biggest advantage of a VPN is that it increases the functionality, security, and management of the private network. Using a VPN, we can access the resources inaccessible on the public network and mainly used by remote workers.

There are mainly two kinds of VPN:

Site to Site VPN
Remote access VPN

15) What do you understand by order of the Rule Enforcement?

The Order of the Rule Enforcement is a precedence order that specifies the priority order of the task. The firewall checks each incoming connection to the network and compares the data to the first rule. If the connection matches the rule, the firewall applies the rule action. If the connection does not match the rule in some cases, it continues with the next rule in the Rule Base.

16) What is the full form of NAT?

NAT is an acronym that stands for Network Address Translation. NAT is mainly used for mapping Private IP addresses with Public IP addresses and Public IP addresses with Private IP addresses. It also provides security to the internal servers and network from the Internet. We can also use it to connect the Internet with the Private IP Address.

17) What is Source Nat?

Source Nat initiates the traffic from the internal network to the external network. In the Source NAT, only Source IP is translated into the public IP address.

18) What do you understand by IPSec?

IPSec stands for IP Security. It is a group of accountable protocols that establish secure communication between two networks and host machines over a public network like the Internet. The biggest advantage of IPSec is that it provides Integrity, Confidentiality, Authenticity, and Anti Replay Protection.

There are mainly two types of IPSec protocols:

ESP (Encapsulation Security Protocol)
Authentication Header (AH)

19) What is the main difference between Authentication Header (AH) and ESP (Encapsulation Security Protocol) IPSec Protocol?

Authentication Header (AH) and ESP (Encapsulation Security Protocol) IPSec are the components of the IPSec suite, but there are some differences between them. Following is the list of main differences between them:

Authentication Header (AH)	ESP (Encapsulation Security Protocol) IPSec
AH is used to provide only Integrity and Authenticity.	ESP is mainly used to provide Confidentiality, Authenticity, and Integrity.
It does not provide encryption.	It provides encryption also.
It can be used in two modes: Tunnel Mode and Transport Mode.	It can also be used in two modes: Tunnel Mode and Transport Mode.

20) What are the basic access control rules recommended for all Rule Bases?

Following is the list of the basic access control rules recommended for all Rule Bases:

Stealth rule: This rule prevents direct access to the Security Gateway.
Cleanup rule: This rule drops all traffic not allowed by the earlier rules.
Another implied rule drops all traffic but allows us to use the Cleanup rule to log the traffic.

21) What do you understand by the explicit rule of the CheckPoint Firewall?

Explicit rule of the CheckPoint Firewall is a rule that the Network Security Administrator creates in the rule base.

22) What do you understand by Checkpoint SecureXL, ClusterXL and CoreXL?

CheckPoint SecureXL (Secure acceleration)

CheckPoint SecureXL provides the maximum performance of the Firewall without compromising security. We can process and handle several CPU-intensive operations using virtualized software rather than the firewall kernel using SecureXL on a Security Gateway. It facilitates the Firewall to do better inspection and process connections more efficiently. It can also accelerate the throughput and connection rate.

ClusterXL

ClusterXL is also called smart load balancing. It has a set of identical CheckPoint Security Gateways, which are connected so that if one (Security Gateway) fails, another immediately replaces it. It offers high availability and load sharing that can maintain business continuity. If the connection gateway or network goes down, the connection is seamlessly redirected to the backups, which ensures business continuity.

CoreXL

CoreXL is also called multicore acceleration. When we enable CoreXL on a Security Gateway, the Firewall kernel is replicated multiple times, and each replica (instance) runs on a single processor core. In CoreXL, all instances are complete firewall kernels that handle and inspect traffic concurrently. In this way, it enhances security gateway performance. Each Firewall instance is used to process traffic through the same interfaces and applies the same gateway security policies. CoreXL also provides high security and high performance simultaneously.

23) What do you understand by "Hide NAT" and "Destination NAT"?

Hide NAT: Hide NAT is used for many to one translation. It translates multiple IPs or Networks with a Single Public IP Address. It can only be used in source NAT translation. We cannot use it in Destination NAT.

Destination NAT: Destination NAT is used to translate the Destination IP address. When we want to translate the Destination IP address for connecting with the internal private network from the Public IP address, we can use only Static NAT in the Destination NAT.

24) Which types of connections are allowed by a firewall on the perimeter?

The following types of connections are allowed by a firewall on the perimeter:

Connections to the DNS server.
Connections to servers in the DMZ.
The outgoing connections to the Internet.
Specified external connections.
Connections from the internal network to the internal network
VPN connections

25) What is the full form of SIC?

SIC is an acronym that stands for Secure Internal Communication. It is a CheckPoint firewall feature used for making the secure connection between the CheckPoint firewall components. SIC is mainly used when the security gateway and security management server are available in the distributed deployment.

26) What are the main benefits of GAIA over SPLAT?

GAIA is the latest version of CheckPoint, a combination of SPLAT and IPSO.

Following is a list of some advantages of GAIA over SPLAT/IPSO:

It is a Web-Based user interface with Search Navigation.
It offers full Software Blade support.
It provides a high connection capacity.
It provides native IPv4 and IPv6 support.
It has Role-Based administrative Access.
It has some intelligent software updates.
It provides Full Compatibility with IPSO and SecurePlatform.
It has a Manageable Dynamic Routing Suite.

27) What do you understand by a Network Firewall?

A Network Firewall is a system or set used to implement an access control policy between two networks. A firewall has a pair of mechanisms:

The first mechanism of a firewall is that it blocks the traffic.
The second one is that it permits traffic.

It means that some firewalls are used to block the traffic, and some firewalls aim to permit traffic. In a firewall, the most important thing is the implementation of access control policies. A user must clearly understand what type of access they want to allow or deny.

28) What is Bastion Host?

A Bastion Host is a dedicated system intentionally exposed on a public network. From a secured network point-of-view, as it is the only node exposed to the outside world intentionally on a public network, it is very vulnerable to attack. This dedicated system is placed outside the Firewall in one firewall system, or if the system has two firewalls, it is placed between two firewalls.

Bastion Host filters and processes incoming traffic and diverts vulnerable traffic from entering the network, serving as a gateway. Some common examples for bastion hosts are domain name systems and mail.

29) What are the most important features of SmartLog?

The most important features of SmartLog are as follows:

It facilitates users to search through billions of logs with simple search strings quickly.
It also monitors logs from administrator activity and connections in real-time.
The applicable logs are selected from many default search engines.
With SmartLog, the administrators can quickly identify important security events.

30) What do you understand by Authentication?

Authentication is a process of deciding the identity of a user who wants access to the system. The users must verify their computer identity (username and password) in the authentication process.

31) What do you understand by the Stealth Rule?

The Stealth Rule is a rule that does not allow any communication to the Firewall and protects it from any vulnerable attacks. This rule is placed on the top of the rule base.

32) What do you understand by Cryptographic Checksum?

Cryptographic Checksum is a one-way function applied to a file to produce a unique fingerprint for later reference. The checksum system is the main method to detect file system tampering with the UNIX system.

33) What are the different types of firewalls?

Following is the list of different types of firewalls:

Packet Filtering Firewall: This type of Firewall is used to detect packets, block unnecessary packets, and release network traffic.
Screening Router Firewall: This type of Firewall is a software-based firewall available in Router. It is used to provide only light filtering.
Computer-based Firewall: This type of Firewall is stored in a server with an existing Operating System like Windows and UNIX.
Hardware base Firewall: As the name indicates, this type of Firewall has a device-like box that allows strong security from public networks. Big networks mostly use this type of Firewall.
Proxy Server: It also acts as a type of Firewall that allows all clients to access the Internet with different access limits. The proxy server has its Firewall, which filters all packets from the web server.

34) What is an Application-level gateway?

Application-level gateway is one of the important features of ScreenOS gateways. It facilitates the gateway for parsing the application-layer payloads. Besides this, some other ScreenOS features like deep inspection, in which the gateway checks traffic at the application layer.

The application-level gateway is mainly used to support the applications, which use the application layer payload for interacting with the dynamic Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) on which applications open data connections.

35) What are the different elements of a Security Zone?

Following is a list of the different critical elements of a Security Zone:

External network: It includes insecure data.
Internal network: It includes the company data.
Perimeter: It specifies the border between the internal and external networks.
DMZ: It includes the company servers.

36) What do you understand by Transparent Firewall?

Transparent Firewall is a type of layer between two devices which can be configured on the available networks. In the transparent firewall layer, we can pass from higher to lower security levels without the access-list configuration.