CPUG CON 2008 EUROPE
The Check Point User Conference
September 8th - 9th, 2008
Chur ("Koor"), Switzerland

We're CPUG.
The User Group For The
 Check Point Community


Technical Sessions

These are "Groups", not "Tracks".  You can choose to attend whichever Technical Sessions you wish, from any group.   As we get closer to the conference, we'll specify time blocks for these sessions.

Group 1:  Firewall-1/VPN-1 Under The Hood
Group 2:  Technical Presentations By OPSEC Partners
Group 3:  How To Deal With Your Work And Regulatory Environment
Group 4:  How To Deal With Check Point
Group 5:  We Help Each Other Out


Group 1: Firewall-1/VPN-1 Under The Hood:

___101:  Live!  Zero Interruption Upgrade From R62 / IPSO 4.1 To R65 / IPSO 4.2
"A Live Demonstration Migrating A Nokia VRRP Cluster Without Any Disruption Of Already Established Connections"

Using live equipment and live connections, Yasushi will do a complete OS and Firewall-1/VPN-1 upgrade on a Nokia VRRP cluster, all the while maintaining uninterrupted connectivity, including existing connections.  Not even Check Point's documentation provides all the details on how to successfully complete this task.  All attendees will receive a detailed checklist to follow along and to bring home.

Presenter:  Yasushi Kono, CCSA/CCSE/CCSE+, Senior Technical Consultant at ComputerLinks GmbH in Dreieich, Germany, the biggest CheckPoint Partner in Europe

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "Yasushi Kono"

 

___102:  Networking Essentials For Firewall Administrators
"What You Need to Know Before the Packets Flow"

This session will be a fast one hour review of the most important underlying networking essentials for firewall administrators, including:

  1. Networking Protocols
  2. IP Protocols
  3. The OSI Seven-Layer Networking Model
  4. TCP And UDP
  5. IP Addresses, Subnet Masks and Routing
  6. Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
  7. Putting It All Together

Even experienced administrators will find this refresher tutorial useful.  This talk has been extremely popular with advanced Check Point students.  Fill in the missing gaps in your skillset!

Presenter:  Barry Stiefel, CCSA/CCSE/CCSE+, President of CPUG and owner of Information Engine, Inc. in San Francisco

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "BarryStiefel"

 

___103:  Integrating Active Directory with Firewall-1/VPN-1
"A Detailed Under-The-Hood Demonstration"

Reducing the count of user databases and moving towards Single Sign On (SSO) is a goal in many organizations.  Firewall-1/VPN-1 allows integration with your existing Active Directory / LDAP servers.

Yasushi will do the complete process from start to finish, including the tricky (and undocumented in the official courseware) process of extended the Active Directory schema via LDAP-SSL prior to integrating LDAP into your Secure Virtual Network.

Presenter:  Yasushi Kono, CCSA/CCSE/CCSE+, Senior Technical Consultant at ComputerLinks GmbH in Dreieich, Germany, the biggest CheckPoint Partner in Europe

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "Yasushi Kono"

 

___104:  NAT For Newbies (And Not So Newbies)
"All About NAT"

Most network and firewall administrators learn about Network Address Translation (NAT) by having the secrets passed down to them as part of the oral folklore of the IT Global Village.  This session will thoroughly explore the world of NAT, including:

  1. What is NAT?
  2. When Would I Use NAT, and Why?
  3. Security Implications of NAT
  4. Hide Mode NAT vs. Static Mode NAT
  5. Automatic Rule Creation vs. Manual Rule Creation
  6. Special Issues Including Routing and ARP
  7. Putting It All Together

Even experienced administrators will find this refresher tutorial useful.  Fill in the missing gaps in your skillset!

Presenter:  Barry Stiefel, CCSA/CCSE/CCSE+, President of CPUG and owner of Information Engine, Inc. in San Francisco

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "BarryStiefel"

 

___105:  Integrating RSA SecurID Into Your Check Point Environment
"Why Re-Invent The Wheel?"

Yasushi will discuss the common problems and issues and step through the process.  Use your Firewall-1/VPN-1 Security Gateways as SecurID clients!

Presenter:  Yasushi Kono, CCSA/CCSE/CCSE+, Senior Technical Consultant at ComputerLinks GmbH in Dreieich, Germany, the biggest CheckPoint Partner in Europe

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "Yasushi Kono"

 

___106:  Tutorial And Demonstration On The New Disaster Recovery Features In Firewall-1/VPN-1
"Five Strong Choices For Disaster Recovery"

After years of complaints about the limited Disaster Recovery options in Firewall-1/VPN-1, Check Point recently rolled out many robust and useful tools for making reliable backups.  In this tutorial and demonstration, see them in action, including:

  • Policy Package Management
  • Database Revision Control
  • Upgrade_Export/Upgrade_Import
  • Backup/Restore
  • Snapshot/Revert

Presenter:  Barry Stiefel, CCSA/CCSE/CCSE+, President of CPUG and owner of Information Engine, Inc. in San Francisco

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "BarryStiefel

 

___107:  Working with UTM-1 Edge clusters in Centrally Managed Environments
"Configuration, Maintenance, Real World Practice and VPN Networking with UTM-1 Edge Boxes."

An insightful view about the possibilities working with UTM-1 Edge boxes in large setups, including "Do's and Don'ts", common issues and how to troubleshoot them, even in HA-configurations.  This will be a strong overview about when to go for an UTM-1 Edge and when to consider another solution.

Presenter:  Danny Trommer, CCSA/CCSE/CCSE+/CPSC, Senior IT-Security Engineer and Chief Check Point technician at Electronic Service Center, in Halle (Saale), Germany.

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "dantro".

 

___108:  Check Point and Security Operations Management
"Check Point and Security Operations Management Showcasing SmartCenter, Eventia Analyzer and Tufin's SecureTrack products."

Presenter:  Robert Mitchell, CCSE+, owner and CEO of PureSecurity Pty Ltd, a Check Point focused Security Consultancy and MSP in Sydney, Australia.

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "Thorpuse".

___109:  Under-The-Hood With SecureClient

"What Not To Do With SecureClient"

Common mistakes, accidents and vulnerabilities that are potentially available through extending your security perimeter.  A little bit BlackHattish, and hopefully not too terrifying...

Presenter:  Robert Mitchell, CCSE+, owner and CEO of PureSecurity Pty Ltd, a Check Point focused Security Consultancy and MSP in Sydney, Australia.

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "Thorpuse".

___110:  "Total Security": Under The Hood

"Virus, URL and Spam Filtering"

The new “Total Security” line of Security appliances have added Anti-Virus, URL Filtering and Anti-Spam. This presentation and demonstration will show all three in action, as well as some useful undocumented tools for troubleshooting issues with these technologies.

Presenter:  Robert Mitchell, CCSE+, owner and CEO of PureSecurity Pty Ltd, a Check Point focused Security Consultancy and MSP in Sydney, Australia.

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "Thorpuse".

___111:  Upgrading Firewall-1/VPN-1

"Best practices for upgrading Firewall-1/VPN-1"

Tips and tricks, some of them undocumented, for VPN-1 upgrade on various platforms and in different configurations

Presenter:  Valeri Loukine, CCMA, Senior Security Engineer at Dimension Data in Switzerland.

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "varera".


___112:  When Firewall-1/VPN-1 Isn’t Enough: Why And How To Upgrade to Provider-1

"Why And How To Upgrade To Provider-1"

Provider-1 expert Valeria Loukine will compare and contrast managing large Check Point installations with both Firewall-1/VPN and Provider-1 and explain when you should consider upgrading to Provider-1.

Presenter:  Valeri Loukine, CCMA, Senior Security Engineer at Dimension Data in Switzerland.

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "varera".


___113:  Learn How You Can Dramatically Improve Your Firewall Performance

"Technical measures you can take to ensure your firewalls are working for you; Improve firewall performance and heighten security."

Enterprise firewall policies are in a constant state of change.  It is not uncommon for firewall administration teams to process dozens of rule additions and changes daily.  This continuous flux causes the firewall configuration and rule base to grow dramatically over time.  The complexity of the configuration decreases the firewall's performance and may lead to potential security breaches.  Cleaning up the clutter by finding unused rules that do not match any traffic, duplicate rules, and rules that are covered by other rules is a time consuming, complex and often error prone task for the firewall administrator.

This session will introduce ways to easily identify and mitigate against this clutter and risk. It will also detail a measurable component for firewall performance that will enable administrators to optimize their policy and quantifiably show the improvement to performance.  This new metric is called Rules Matched Per Packet (RMPP).  Using this new standard and following the recommended actions derived from it will decrease the firewall utilization, greatly improve the overall performance and reduce risk by eliminating clutter.

Presenter:  Dr. Avishai Wool, Co-Founder and CTO, AlgoSec.


Group 2: Technical Presentations By OPSEC Partners:

Serious, technical, under-the-hood lectures and demonstrations geared towards end-users.  Not a sales or marketing presentation.

Please contact Barry Stiefel ("Stee-ful") at 1-415-543-5222 or bjstiefel <(at)> CPUG <(dot)> org to discuss the opportunities here.

Group 3: How To Deal With Your Work And Regulatory Environment:

___301:  The Regulation Zoo: Dealing With Compliance Within The Firewall World

"Ways to more effectively deal with increasing regulations (PCI, SOX, ISO27001, Basel-II and more) impacting your firewall management"

In recent years, in addition to corporate regulations it seems that the authority in every market segment has created a computer network security regulation that affects firewall management (SOX, PCI, ISO27001, Basel-II, HIPAA, FISMA, ...).  Your organization may even be subject to more than one of these.  Complying with these regulations can be painful if you are not prepared, is always very time consuming -- and your senior management is extremely interested.  In this talk I will touch upon the main areas of firewall management that these regulations refer to, with examples on ways to improve your situation.

Presenter:  Dr. Avishai Wool, Co-Founder and CTO, AlgoSec.

Group 4: How To Deal With Check Point:

Group 5: We Help Each Other Out:

___501:  Community Discussion: Ask The Experts

"Ask-The-Experts Discussion Panel"

Sit down with a group of very experienced and knowledgeable experts and get your questions answered.

Presenter:  Barry Stiefel, CCSA/CCSE/CCSE+, President of CPUG and owner of Information Engine, Inc. in San Francisco

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "BarryStiefel"

 

___502:  Community Discussion:  Challenges And Opportunities In Our IT Security Careers

"Improving Our Careers"

As a group, we'll discuss career paths and opportunities in the Check Point / Firewall / IT Security space.

Specifically, we'll look at questions like:

1.  How valuable are Check Point certifications?
2.  What other certifications or skills best complement being a Check Point specialist?
3.  How big is the risk of off-shoring, and what can we do individually to protect ourselves?
4.  How is this career going to change in the future, and how can we be ready for it?
5.  What works and what doesn't in terms of career advancement in this field?

Presenter:  Barry Stiefel, CCSA/CCSE/CCSE+, President of CPUG and owner of Information Engine, Inc. in San Francisco

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "BarryStiefel"

 

___503:  Community Discussion:  Tell Us About Your Network

"Network Show-and-Tell"

1.  Which Check Point products are you using?  Which work?  Which don't?
2.  What else have you got going on in your network?
3.  What are the special issues you're facing now?
4.  What are your upgrade plans?

Presenter:  Barry Stiefel, CCSA/CCSE/CCSE+, President of CPUG and owner of Information Engine, Inc. in San Francisco

On the CPUG discussion board, he is "BarryStiefel"

 

___504:  Community Discussions:  Birds Of A Feather

"Request-Generated Break-Out Groups"

We'll post a sign-up sheet for attendees to request specific break-out groups.  During this session we'll split up and meet with fellow attendees with the same interests and issues.

 


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