Security software corporation Check Point held its yearly summit in Kenya for the first time early this week. The company, which prides itself with class-leading cybersecurity technologies staged the Check Point Experience (CPX) fair in Nairobi, which was graced by several cybersecurity experts that dived into the details of securing enterprise systems and mobile devices from attacks that target networks, cloud services and endpoints.
Check Point’s presence is in over 88 countries across the globe and has worked with over 6000 partners. According to Kendi Nderitu who serves as the group’s Country Manager in Kenya, Check Point holds several security-related patents.
Check Point opened a station in Kenya in 2012, which also serves as the headquarter for its trade in Eastern and North Africa. Asked about why it chose Nairobi as its primary base of operations, Ms Nderitu said that Kenya has registered the highest amount of installs of its services. What’s more, Check Point works with about 25 local channel partners. It also serves over 90 percent of the banks in the nation. In other words, CP’s presence in Kenya is wider owing to a notable adoption of internet usage and technologies.
“We are proactively expanding our business in other regions as well. We have sites in Uganda and Tanzania, as well as Morocco and Ethiopia, among others. All of these markets are important to us,” pointed out Ms Nderitu.
Asked about what differentiates the company from other cybersecurity and networking corporations such as Cisco, Ms Nderitu insisted that Check Point is purely a cybersecurity firm.
“The company was founded when the Internet was coming up, which is more than 25 years ago. We invented the firewall: it was patented to us. After some time, the network protection technology was opened for other vendors,” she added.
Perhaps the most unique approach of Check Point is its ability to adapt to the ever-changing perimeters of organizations and offering end to end protection for such institutions.
Lastly, while CP’s policy is prevention rather than detection.
“It is better to prevent an attack. However, if an institution is already vulnerable, we go in and intervene because we have services for that.”
