Check Point further enhances its Security Management with new features, stability fixes and more frequent releases. These enhancements are delivered using a new release path called "Management Feature Release." 

Management Feature Releases are designed for customers who want to access and use the latest available Security Management capabilities. 
Ongoing performance and stability fixes will be provided via future R80.20.Mx versions. As these versions will be released frequently, Check Point does not plan to release dedicated Jumbo Hotfixes for R80.20.Mx. Customers should install the latest R80.20.Mx release and be prepared to frequently upgrade their management environment to the latest version.

Upgrading to this version is supported from all previous versions.
Upgrading from Management Feature Release to future Major releases will be supported.


Key Differences from Major Release

	Management Feature Release	Major Release
Release Frequency	Frequent releases	According to Major Release Schedule
Supported Products	Security Management of all deployment types,SmartConsole GUI application, Security Management Server, Multi-Domain Management Server, Multi-Domain Log Server SmartEvent and SmartLog	Security Gateway of all deployment types, SmartConsole GUI application, Security Management Server, Multi-Domain Management Server, Standalone deployment
Jumbo Hotfix Accumulator and fixes methodology	Updates are shipped within the next Management Feature Release	Jumbo Hotfixes will continue to be released on regular basis
Managed Gateways	Starting from R80.20 GA and R80.20.M2, it is possible to manage R80.20 and below Security Gateways.	Manages Security gateways of this release as well as previous ones

CloudGuard Controller

• Support Data Center objects for VMware vCenter Tags
• Support Data Center Objects for VMware NSX Universal Security Groups

CPView

• CPView support for Multi-Domain Security Management
• SNMP support for CPView metrics

SmartConsole

• Operational Efficiency - add and remove an object from groups within the object editor
• Logging and Monitoring - improved, simpler and faster user experience for exporting logs to Splunk
• R80.20.M2 SmartConsole can be installed on the same client machine together with R80.20 SmartConsole

Advanced Threat Prevention

• Consolidated Threat Prevention dashboard providing full threat visibility across networks, mobile and endpoints

The below list shows the R80.20 GA newest Security Management features and enhancements

R80.20 GA Security Management Features

Threat Prevention

• Enhanced configuration and monitor abilities for Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) in SmartConsole for handling malicious mails
• Configuration of ICAP Server with Threat Emulation and Anti-Virus Deep Scan in SmartConsole
• Automatic download of IPS updates by the Security Gateway
• SmartConsole support for multiple Threat Emulation Private Cloud Appliances
• SmartConsole support for blocking archives containing prohibited file types

CloudGuard IaaS Enhancements

• Automated Security Transit VPC in Amazon Web Services (AWS) - Automatically deploy and maintain secured scalable architecture in Amazon Web Services

Access Policy

• Updatable Objects – a new type of network objects that represent an external service such as Office 365, Amazon Web Services, Azure GEO locations and more, and can be used in the Source and Destination columns of an Access Control policy. These objects are dynamically updated and kept up-to-date by the Security Gateway without the need to install a policy
• Wildcard network object in Access Control that represents a series of IP addresses that are not sequential
• Only for Multi-Domain Server: Support for scheduled policy installation with cross-Domain installation targets (Security Gateways or Policy Packages)
• Security Management Server can securely connect to Active Directory via a Security Gateway if the Security Management Server has no connectivity to the Active Directory environment and the Security Gateway does

SmartConsole

• SmartConsole Accessibility features
  • Keyboard navigation - ability to use the keyboard alone to navigate between the different SmartConsole fields
  • Improved experience for the visually impaired, color invert for all SmartConsole windows
  • Required fields are highlighted

Logging and Monitoring

• Log Exporter - an easy and secure method to export Check Point logs over Syslog to any SIEM vendor using standard protocols and formats
• Unified logs for Security Gateway, SandBlast Agent and SandBlast Mobile for simplified log investigation
• Enhanced SmartView in browser:
  • Relative time frame support
  • I18N support for 6 languages (English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Russian)

Mobile Access

• Support for reCaptcha, keep abusive automated software activities from interfering with regular portal operations
• Support for One Time Password (OTP) without any hardware tokens

Threat Prevention

• Threat Prevention Indicators (IoC) API
  • Management API support for Threat Prevention Indicators (IoC)
  • Add, delete, and view indicators through the Management API
• Threat Prevention Layers
  • Support layer sharing within Threat Prevention policy
  • Support setting different administrator permissions per Threat Prevention layer

Gaia OS

• Upgraded Linux kernel (3.10)
• New file system (xfs)
  • More than 2TB support per a single storage device
  • Enlarged systems storage (up to 48T tested)
• I/O related performance improvements
• Support of new system tools for debugging, monitoring and configuring the system
  • iotop (provides I/O runtime stats)
  • lsusb (provides information about all devices connected to USB)
  • lshw (provides detailed information about all hardware)
  • lsscsi (provides information about storage)
  • ps (new version, more counters)
  • top (new version, more counters)
  • iostat (new version, more counters)
• Compressed snapshots - reduced system snapshot size

Access Policy

• Rule Base performance improvements, for enhanced Rule Base navigation and scrolling
• Global VPN Communities (previously supported in R77.30)
• Access Control visibility for NAT46 and NAT64
• Identify Tags: Access Role objects can manage identities that originated from Cisco ISE Security Groups or Check Point Identity Awareness API

Logging and Monitoring

• SmartView (web) enhancements:
  • Auto-refresh views
  • Improved log-viewer with cards, profiles, statistics and filters
  • Export logs with custom or all fields
• Keyboard-navigation
• Ability to define an external Syslog server object and configure Security Gateway to send all its logs to it (previously supported in R77.30)
• Log Exporter - an easy and secure method to export Check Point logs over syslog that utilizes standard protocols and formats

SmartProvisioning

• Integration with SmartProvisioning (previously supported in R77.30)
• Support for the 1400 series appliances
• Administrators can now use SmartProvisioning in parallel with SmartConsole

SmartConsole

• Multiple simultaneous sessions in SmartConsole. One administrator can publish or discard several SmartConsole private sessions, independently of the other sessions

CloudGuard IaaS Enhancements

• Integration with Google Cloud Platform
• Integration with Cisco ISE
• Integration with Nuage Networks
• Automatic license management with the CloudGuard IaaS Central Licensing utility
• Monitoring capabilities integrated into SmartView
• CloudGuard IaaS support for 41000, 44000, 61000, and 64000 Scalable Platforms

Endpoint Security Server

Managing features that are included in R77.30.03:

• Management of new Software Blades:

• SandBlast Agent Anti-Bot
• SandBlast Agent Threat Emulation and Anti-Exploit
• SandBlast Agent Forensics and Anti-Ransomware
• Capsule Docs

• New features in existing blades:

• Full Disk Encryption
  • Offline Mode
  • Self Help Portal
  • XTS-AES Encryption
  • New options for the Trusted Platform Module (TPM).
  • New options for managing Pre-Boot Users
• Media Encryption and Port Protection
  • New options to configure encrypted container
  • Optical Media Scan
• Anti-Malware
  • Web Protection
  • Advanced Disinfection

Additional Enhancements

• Improvements in policy installation performance on R80.10 and higher gateways with IPS
• Compliance:
  • User can create custom best practices based on scripts
  • Support for 35 regulations including General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)