R82 EA Program now available

Check Point announced the R82 “Aurora” Early Availability program for production environments only. A date for the Public EA (for lab environments) has not been announced yet, but there are speculations that R82 will be released around CPX 2024 so this might result in a Public EA Program within 3 month from now.

From the announcement on CheckMates:

Introducing Check Point Software Technologies’ groundbreaking release, R82 “Aurora”. This cutting-edge software marks a pivotal moment in cybersecurity with many innovative features. R82 ushers in a new era of web security, offering complete protection for HTTP/3 over QUIC, setting an industry precedent.

You can enroll to the R82 EA Program for production environments here.

It’s a long list with new features, inlcuding a significant milestone in performance, simplicity, and deployment of HTTPS Inspection, simplified cluster deployment through ElasticXL and a long awaited versatile new VSX mode, and much much more…

Quantum Security Gateway and Gaia

Web Security

• Added support of HTTP/3 protocol over QUIC transport (UDP) for Network Security, Threat Prevention and Sandboxing.

HTTPS Inspection

This release brings a significant milestone in performance, simplicity, and deployment of HTTPS Inspection. These capabilities allow customers to implement HTTPS Inspection without compromising performance and user experience.

• Full Fail-open mode – A new capability that automatically detects a failure in the HTTPS Inspection process because of client-side issues such as pinned certificates. When detected, the connection is automatically added to an exception list, ensuring zero connectivity issues for end-users.
• Deployment assessment – Allows customers to gradually deploy HTTPS to a portion of the traffic (up to 30%), predicts the performance, and automatically detects and resolves connectivity issues.
• Bypass under load – Optionally bypass HTTPS Inspection in case of high CPU load.
• HTTPS Inspection monitoring – Inspection status overview and detailed advanced HTTPS Inspection statistics.
• Enhanced HTTPS Inspection policy – An improved HTTPS policy with a default recommended inspection policy, separate inbound and outbound rules, and multiple outbound certificate support.

Automatic Zero Phishing Configuration

• Introducing a new addition to the Zero Phishing Software Blade – the Automatic mode. The Automatic mode significantly simplifies the configuration process, providing a seamless experience. With the Automatic mode, the blade configuration is now effortless: simply enable the Software Blade, and you are ready to go.

Improved Threat Prevention Capabilities

• Added configuration granularity for advanced DNS protections in Threat Prevention.
• Added Advanced DNS protection against NXNS Attack.
• Added support for DNS over HTTPS Inspection.
• New Zero-Day prevention engine integrated into the Anti-Bot Blade. This engine detects and blocks advanced malware Zero-Day variants by automatically analyzing and identifying communication patterns.
• Added Advanced DNS capability to block DNS queries to newly created domains.
• DNS Security statistics are now available in the SmartView Dashboard.
• It is now possible to load SNORT rules file as Custom Intelligence Feed automatically with 5-minute intervals to enforce them as IPS protections.

New Clustering Technology

• ElasticXL – a new clustering technology delivering simplified operations with a Single Management Object and automatic sync of configuration and software between all cluster members.

Dynamic Policy Layer

• Fully automated, API-controlled policy layer that allows dynamic policy changes to be implemented directly to the Security Gateway in seconds without involving Security Management.

Unified Configuration

• Kernel parameters configuration is now performed in centralized database with Gaia Clish commands and Gaia REST API calls instead of fwkern.conf and simkern.conf files. See:
  • The Local Gaia API Reference at “https://<IP Address of Gaia Management Interface>/gaia_docs/#introduction” > section “Global Parameters”.

Identity Awareness

• Quantum Gateways can now use Identity Providers defined in the Check Point Infinity Portal, allowing customers to centrally manage identities across multiple Check Point products.
• Introducing a new mode for Identity Awareness Blade – “PDP-Only”, where the Security Gateway acts only as Policy Decision Point (PDP) for identity acquisition and distribution and does not enforce the identity-based policy. The new mode improves scalability for PDPs and Identity Broker. To enable the “PDP-Only” mode, see sk181605.
• Introduced Identity Sharing cache mode to improve resiliency in case of connectivity loss with the PDP.

IPsec VPN

• Automatically detect configuration changes in AWS, Azure, and GCP public clouds and adjust the VPN settings ensuring connection stability.
• Introducing the Advanced VPN Monitoring tool that shows information on each VPN Tunnel and tracks its health and performance.
• Enhanced Tunneling:
  • Added support for Dead Peer Detection (DPD) with Link Selection.
  • Support for Tunnel IP address that is different from the Gateway Main IP, for enhanced
  • interoperability with third-party vendors. Introducing the capability to configure distinct external interfaces for different communities, enabling greater granularity.
  • Allow ISP links redundancy with third-party and cloud vendors VPN peers.

Remote Access VPN

• Security Gateway now supports the IKEv2 protocol for connections from Remote Access VPN Clients (E87.70 and higher for Windows OS and E87.80 and higher for macOS).

Mobile Access

• Mobile Access Policy and Capsule Workspace configurations are now available in SmartConsole.
• SAML authentication support for Mobile Access clients that allows seamless integration with third-party Identity Providers.
• New Management API calls for Capsule Workspace configuration. See the Local Management API Reference at “https://<IP Address of Gaia Management Interface on Management Server>/api_docs/” > section “Mobile Access”.

Gaia Operating System

This release boosts Gaia OS with a new OS kernel and multiple new configuration options for better security, enhanced networking and a simpler experience.

The new capabilities are:

• Enhance Gaia OS support with:
  • Support for VSX mode in Gaia Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP).
  • DHCPv6 server, DHCPv6 client, and DHCPv6 client for prefix-delegation.
  • Ability to configure the order of the “AAA” authentication (TACACS, RADIUS, Local authentication) in Gaia Portal and Gaia Clish.
  • DNS Proxy forwarding domains, which allows configuring specific DNS servers per DNS suffix.
• New Gaia Clish and Gaia Portal configuration items:
  • NTP pools and a larger number of NTP servers.
  • NFSv4 configuration.
  • Keyboard layout.
• Support for storing a Gaia OS backup in and restoring it from Amazon S3 and Microsoft Azure. 

Dynamic Routing

Added support for new Dynamic Routing capabilities:

• BGP Extended Communities (RFC 4360).
• BGP Conditional Route Advertisement and Injection.
• Routing Table Monitor for Event Triggers.
• IPv4 and IPv6 Router Discovery on cluster members.
• Router Preference and Route Information option.
• IPv4 PIM-SSM with non-default prefixes.
• IPv4 PIM with BFD.
• IPv4 PIM neighbor filtering.
• IPv6 Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) and Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD).
• REST API calls for BGP, PIM, Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD).
• REST API calls for Route Redistribution, Inbound Route Filters, and NAT Pools.
• REST API calls for IGMP.

See the Local Gaia API Reference at “https://<IP Address of Gaia Management Interface>/gaia_docs/#introduction” > section “Networking”.

Performance and Infrastructure

• Added elephant flow acceleration support for SMB/CIFS service in HyperFlow.
• Quantum Security Gateway multi-core utilization for log sending, improving log output capacity by up to 100%.

Maestro Hyperscale

This release features improvements in managing and monitoring Maestro Hyperscale clusters, which include:

• Support for SNMP Queries on each Security Group Member..
• REST API on Quantum Maestro Orchestrator and ElasticXL Cluster Members:
  • New Quantum Maestro Orchestrator API calls for configuration and monitoring of Security Groups, Gateways, Sites, and Ports.
  • Support per member Gaia REST APIs for Quantum Maestro and ElasticXL Cluster Members.

See the Local Gaia API Reference at “https://<IP Address of Gaia Management Interface>/gaia_docs/#introduction” > section “Maestro”.

VSX

Check Point VSX is enhanced with a new mode, allowing simpler configuration, easier provisioning, and a similar experience to a physical Security Gateway.

The benefits of the new VSX mode are:

• Unified management experience between Check Point physical Security Gateways and Virtual Gateways, including the capability to manage each Virtual Gateway from a different Management Server.
• Improves VSX provisioning performance and provisioning experience – creating, modifying, and deleting Virtual Gateways and Virtual Switches in Gaia Portal, Gaia Clish, or with Gaia REST API.
• Management feature and API parity between Virtual Gateways (VGW) and physical Security Gateways.

Tools and Utilities

• ConnView – a new consolidated troubleshooting tool for viewing connections information on the Security Gateway that works in the User Space Firewall (USFW). See the Local Gaia API Reference at “https://<IP Address of Gaia Management Interface>/gaia_docs/#introduction” > section “Diagnostics” > section”Connections” >command “show-connections”. In the Expert mode, run the “connview” command.
• New policy advisory tool “up_execute” (in the Expert mode), which performs virtual Access / NAT Rule Base execution. Given inputs based on logs or connections, the execution provides detailed information such as matched rules and classification information.

Quantum Security Management

Security Management Server Enhancements

• The LDAP Account Unit object now uses the LDAP server name and CA certificate for LDAP trust. The trust is automatically renewed if an administrator renews or replaces the LDAP server certificate. As a result, Check Point servers keep their connectivity to the LDAP server.

• Support for Management API to run the “vsx_provisioning_tool” operations to configure VSX Gateway and VSX Cluster objects. See the Local Management API Reference at “https://<IP Address of Gaia Management Interface on Management Server>/api_docs/” > section “VSX” > command “vsxprovisioning-tool”.
• Security Gateways can now be managed by a Security Management Server hosted behind a public cloud or third-party NAT device.

Central Deployment of Hotfixes and Version Upgrades in SmartConsole

Central Software Deployment through SmartConsole was enhanced and now supports:

• Uninstall of Jumbo Hotfix Accumulators.
• Installation of packages on ClusterXL High Availability mode in the “Switch to higher priority Cluster Member” configuration (“Primary Up”).
• Installation of packages on Secondary Management Servers.
• Installation of packages on Dedicated Log Servers.
• Installation of packages on Dedicated SmartEvent Servers.
• Installation of packages on Clusters of Quantum Spark and Quantum Rugged Appliances.
• Installation of packages from Standalone Servers.
• Package Repository per Domain on a Multi-Domain Security Management Server.

SmartProvisioning

• Star VPN Community now supports Quantum Maestro Security Groups, VSX Gateways, and VSX Clusters as Center Gateways (Corporate Office Gateway).

Multi-Domain Security Management Server

• Ability to clone an existing Domain on the same Multi-Domain Security Management Server. See sk180631.
• Improved upgrade time of large Multi-Domain Security Management Server environments by up to 50%.
• New Management API for setting IPv6 address of Multi-Domain Security Management Server.

Compliance

• Added support for Quantum Maestro and Quantum Spark Appliances:
  • Gaia OS Best Practice support for Maestro Security Groups by checking each Security Group Member individually and presenting a consolidated Best Practices status.
  • Applying relevant Gaia OS Best Practices on Quantum Spark Appliances.
• Added Gaia OS Best Practice support for Log Servers.
• Added new regulations:
  • Cyber Essentials v3.1 regulation
  • Israeli Cyber Defense Methodology 2.0

CloudGuard Network Security

CloudGuard Controller

• CloudGuard Controller support for Identity Awareness PDP (Identity Sharing).
• CloudGuard Controller for VMware NSX-T now uses Policy Mode APIs to import objects from an NSX-T Manager.
• CloudGuard Controller for VMware NSX-T can import Virtual Machines and Tags from an NSX-Tb Manager.
• Multi-Domain Security Management Server now supports Data Center objects and Data Center Query objects in the Global Policy.

CloudGuard Network

• New Management API for CloudGuard Central License utility.

Harmony Endpoint

Harmony Endpoint Web Management enhancements:

• Client optimization for Windows servers – Harmony Endpoint allows you to easily optimize the Endpoint Security clients for Windows servers, such as Exchange servers, Active Directory servers, Database servers, and so on, by manually assigning Windows server roles.
• Run Diagnostics:
  • Runs performance checks on endpoint clients using Push Operation.
  • The performance report presents each client’s CPU and RAM utilization, including the editable threshold.
  • Harmony Endpoint presents suggested exclusion for performance improvements.
  • You can easily add an exclusion as part of “Global Exclusion” or “Exclusion per Rule”:
    • Exclusion description – You can now add comments for new or existing exclusions.
    • Global Exclusion – You can now easily add global exclusion that applies to all rules.
  • Application Control for macOS – Control which applications can run or use networking.
  • New Asset Management view:
    • Filters – A brand new look and functionality for filters that enhances operation and productivity,while using the Asset Management view.
    • Asset Management Table – Bigger asset management table to see all relevant data easily.
    • Columns reorder – New Column reorder option to customize the asset management table based on their specific needs by changing columns location.
  • Linux Offline Package – Supports upload and export package for Linux OS clients.
  • Added Harmony Endpoint Management API to support on-premises Endpoint Security Management Server.

The API is disabled by default for on-premises deployments. See the Harmony Endpoint

Management API article.

Software Changes

Note – To see the list of changes starting R80.40, see sk180180.

This section describes behavior changes from the previous version.

Gaia Operating System

• Updated the Gaia OS Linux kernel version to 4.18.
• CPView Utility saves its log messages in these files:
  • On a Management Server / Log Server / Security Gateway:
    • $CPDIR/log/cpviewd.elg
    • $CPDIR/log/cpview_api_service.elg
  • On a VSX Gateway:
    • $CPDIR/log/cpviewd.elg.vs<VSID>
    • $CPDIR/log/cpview_api_service.elg.vs<VSID>

VSX

• The default value for concurrent connections in the Virtual System object was increased from 15,000 to 50,000 (Optimizations section > Capacity Optimization page).
• In the VSNext mode, the Expert mode command “clish -c” now supports the context of a Virtual Gateway / Virtual Switch with this syntax:

clish -v <Virtual Device ID> -c “<Gaia Clish Command>”

VPN

• When a Check Point Management Server creates an IKE certificate, by default this certificate contains the “Server Authentication” attribute within the “Extended Key Usage” field.

Management Server

• The default minimum TLS version was changed from TLS1.0 to TLS1.2 in the following Check Point communication types:
  • SIC communication between a Management Server and all managed servers and gateways.
  • SSL communication to the TCP port 18265 on a Management Server (the ICA Management Tool).
  • SSL communication to the TCP port 18194 on a Security Gateway configured for Local Threat Emulation.
• Security Gateways R77.30 are not supported.

SmartConsole

• Upgraded the SmartConsole.NET framework from 4.5 to 4.8.

Scalable Platforms

• On the MaestroOrchestratorMHO-175 ports, increased the default MTU size from 9216 to 10240 bytes.
• On a MaestroSecurity Group, in the output of the “asg if” command, the column header changed from “Link State (ch1)/(ch2)” to “Link State (site1)/(site2)”.