Checkpoint FireWall-1 has become one of the top firewall software products in the industry. There are many reasons for its predominance. It was the first commercial firewall on the market, but more importantly, the FireWall-1 GUI and its ease of use impressed corporate CIO’s.

Although FireWall-1 is easy to use, some users face difficulty in configuring the product correctly and appropriately. In fact, one of the biggest dangers of a firewall is that it can provide a false sense of security; if not properly configured, a firewall may have so many holes that it actually functions as nothing more than a router. Firewall expert Marcus Ranum notes that, "...eventually, if enough data is going back and forth through your firewall, it is no longer a firewall - it is a router."

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