CPX 2025: Check Point Partners On Board with New CEO's PlansCPX 2025: Check Point Partners On Board with New CEO's Plans

CHECK POINT CPX 2025 — Check Point Software Technologies partners are encouraged by the company’s new CEO’s plans for continued innovation and preparing for the future.

Nadav Zafrir took over as Check Point’s CEO in December. Former CEO and founder Gil Shwed then became executive chairman of the company's board of directors.

Zafrir took the main stage during CPX Americas 2025 to outline his plans for the company in 2025 and the years ahead. Check Point also announced new partner benefits.

Marc Johnson, channel manager at Connecticut-based Atlantic Data Security, said Check Point with Zafrir in charge “looks very promising.”

“It looks really like we're going to be able to take it to the next level, especially with the different focuses that are represented at this conference today,” he said.

AI has been a big focus of this week’s CPX Americas 2025. Johnson said this will be a big benefit to his business.

Atlantic Data Security's Marc Johnson

“We're hosting educational sessions on that and it goes right back to how Check Point stands alongside you,” he said. “They help us get educated on what it is that they're putting out into the ecosystem, and they will get us up to speed so we can get everybody else up to speed. We sit on the side of the table with the customer and say, 'OK, here are our recommendations. I can probably help you automate these things that are a pain point for your small organization.' It's great to create the next steps because AI is a word that's been thrown around a lot, but there's some meat behind it with this new initiative.”

Related:CPX 2025: Check Point Debuts New Partner, Customer Advocacy Service

Excited for Check Point’s ‘New Transition’

Mike Peterson, cybersecurity consultant at Cincinnati-based Cadre Information Security, said his company is excited about Check Point’s new CEO.

“Gil did an amazing job building an amazing company,” he said. “We never thought we'd see Gil move on and become a board member, but we're excited with the new transition and what that means for the company. There's a lot going on and it's exciting.”

In terms of AI, Cadre Information Security is “walking very cautiously into that space,” Peterson said.

Cadre Information Security's Mike Peterson

“It's an area where security is going to become a big factor for our clients, because how do you secure that?” he said. “And Check Point is leading that march to focus on AI and how to secure it, and allowing our customers to utilize it in a safe way. So we're cautious, but we've got to be on that edge because everybody's jumping to it and utilizing it.”

Mike Gregory, principal consulting system engineer at World Wide Technology (WWT), said CPX Americas 2025 was “absolutely fantastic, very informative.”

Related:CPX 2025: New Check Point CEO Focuses On Future, AI

“I'm very excited for Check Point as an organization,” he said. “In my opinion, they're going to become a better company and a better performer in the market.”

WWT is focused on using AI to increase worker productivity and as a tool to protect organizations, Gregory said.

“It’s a dual-pronged approach that I think a lot of organizations absolutely need to take advantage of,” he said.

Check Point 'Always Led with Partners'

Shwed said in Check Point’s 32-year history, his company never sold any direct deal to any customer in the world. It was always with channel partners.

“It was very simple,” he said. “I came as a 25-year-old kid from Tel Aviv; I met with customers and the customers were showing interest. They were excited about the product, but in order to sell to them, you need something; you need local presence. You need somebody that you can trust and I understood it from day one. Through 100% of the meetings, I went with a local partner. The local partner usually didn’t know much about security or about the internet because they were both new markets. And after a meeting or so, when the customer is saying, 'I want to buy it,' the partner said, 'Great, we will provide it for you.' The model was very simple. After four or five meetings like that, everyone would say, 'I get it now. I know how to approach a customer. I know what's the value proposition,' and then I went to the next city and trained somebody else.”

Related:Check Point, Wiz Partner to Strengthen Cloud Security

Check Point's Cyber Research

Also during CPX Americas 2025, Check Point unveiled research showing a staggering rise in cyberattacks in Latin America.

Organizations in this region now face an average of 2,569 attacks per week, nearly 40% higher than the global average of 1,848 attacks per organization.

Francisco Robayo, head of engineering for Latin America at Check Point, said one of the primary reasons Latin America is receiving 40% more attacks than the rest of the world is because Latin American countries are in development.

“Being a country in development means that everything is under development, including the education that involves people being educated in cybersecurity,” he said. “The processes that govern cybersecurity are also in development, as well as the technology itself that help companies to be protected against the cyberattacks. It’s also the fact that we are different levels of countries. Countries are more prone to attack because of the economic and political situation, and also because they don't have very strict regulations about that as well.”

In addition, Latin America is more targeted for attacks because its regions are “islands,” Robayo said.

“In Europe, for example, they are all together; they have a single regulation for everyone,” he said. “If they catch an attacker in Spain, it's the same as if they catch the attacker in Germany.”

Ransomware is popular among cyberattackers targeting Latin America, but a growing percentage is information theft, Robayo said. Cybercriminals are stealing data, without the victims knowing, and selling it on the dark web.

One encouraging sign is there’s more awareness of cyber risk in Latin America, Robayo said.

“At Check Point, we have a lot of people in Latin America, living in almost all the countries and positioning solutions, educating people because we have more sensibility,” he said. “And they are also more prone to invest in these kinds of solutions. More than 30% of the people attending this event come from Latin America, so that's an indicator that people are giving real attention to these kinds of challenges.”