Alerts & not being able to count.

[melipla]

I apologize in advance for my ranting....

I read Check Point's latest technical newsletter and saw that there was a hotfixed for SecureClient [sk33824]. The hotfix is a security release to patch a vulnerability in the fw.sys file. Needless to say I'm disappointed that it took almost two months before Check Point decided to send me an email with a brief reference in the SK section. According to the SK and Tobias Klein's advisory, a hotfixed version was released Nov 13th. I generally delete email I don't need however I tend to keep what Check Point sends me. I looked back and I don't see any notification about this from Check Point until Dec 31st. I see emails from Check Point on Dec 10th [Technical Newsletter] and Dec 12th [Release Notification] neither of which mention the new SK or the new version of SecureClient. How could it go unannounced for so long?

The other part to this is the fact that I have a good number of SecureClient users. It helps to know which version a person is using, especially if I'm trying to solve a problem, or in the case of this new hotfix, trying to prevent a problem from happening. To note, its incredibly hard to identify a version reliably through Smartview Monitor. I've come to realize that whoever creates these "hotfixes" can't count. Especially in this case where I find that this isn't a "hotfix" but a real version release--as R65 HFA 2 was considered a version, not a hotfix, and it was primarily a security fix as well. To illustrate this point, here's my version history:

R60 HFA 02 Hotfix 1 Help -> about: R60 HFA2 (Build 003)
R60 HFA 02 Help -> about: R60 HFA2 (Build 044)
R60 HFA 01 Hotfix 1 Help -> about: R60 HFA1 (Build 00)
R60 HFA 01 Help -> about: R60 HFA1 (Build 27)
R56 Help -> about: R56 (Build 615)
R56 Help -> about: R56 (Build 596)

It's impossible to explain that Build 003 is newer than Build 044. Its a minor point, I know, but is it *really* that hard to count....

[dsb.nepo]

Hm, don't confuse with this short Build Numbers do a deeper look.

Look at real Build Number (Windows platform)

Version             | Build Number
--------------------|---------------
R60 HFA 02          | 630000044
R60 HFA 02 Hotfix 1 | 630001003
...........................^

I think this is also the version you can query with SCV Check.
I agree that's confusing in SmartMonitor since it shows only the last digits as Build Number.
Also something I miss are these Numbers in every Release Note they are in the R60_HFA2_hotfix1 but not in R60_HFA2.