The European Space Agency Earth Observation Directorate Strengthens Security to Enable Mission-Critical Collaboration

“Our entire perimeter is secured with Check Point. From a single interface we’re able to control all devices, easily and effectively. The simplification of our security management is a very real benefit.”
— Gioacchino Buscemi, Security Officer, Earth Observation Directorate, European Space Agency

Overview

The European Space Agency (ESA) is an international organization, comprised of 22 Member States. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.

Business Challenge

The priority for ESA and the Earth Observation Directorate is to protect the different Earth Observation space missions. It must do so across multiple locations and with a changing cast of international partners (including its equivalent in the U.S., NASA). It is a highly complex environment, processing huge volumes of scientific data.

• Simplify security controls across an increasingly hybrid environment.
• The total data traffic goes through the firewall, so a solution was needed that could handle large volumes of data at the internet access point in Frankfurt

Solutions

Check Point 64000 scalable Next Generation Firewalls are designed to excel in large data center and telco environments. The ESA selection criteria included management, performance, and flexibility. The multi-bladed, chassis-based security system scales to support the needs of growing networks while offering reliability and performance. The Check Point 64000 currently runs at 100 gigabyte per second. “Check Point has been selected as one of the best products that covers all of our requirements”, Buscemi said.

• Check Point 64000 provides Anti-Bot and other protections which are ideally suited to the Agency’s scientific requirements.
• The Agency plans to move to the Check Point R80.10 Security Management Platform, a unified console for full-spectrum visibility of the entire threat landscape.

Results

The Check Point solution screens traffic between different security zones and across a geographically diverse environment, enabling the Agency to continue to innovate its services and progress towards cloud solutions. It secures the Agency’s scientific network.

• Simplifies management of perimeter security, across multiple devices and territories, through a single interface.
• Ensures greater certainty over security roadmap, and maximizes performance of current solutions, through close engagement with Check Point support and engineering.