Check Point Pins Report Gaffe on Contractor

Editor’s note:  As part of our special editorial partnership, Channelnomics is publishing this recent article from CRN in the UK.

Check Point Systems Inc. is apparently blaming a recent marketing blunder on an error made by an outside contractor scrambling to get ready for the recent RSA security conference in San Francisco.

As reported by CRN, the security vendor blanked out some of the competitors clustered around it in NSS Labs’ 2013 next-generation firewall (NGF) report when presenting the results in a PDF on its website.

But the tactic backfired after NSS was alerted and penned a blog reminding vendors of the strict rules they must adhere to when reusing its reports in their marketing material.

At the time, NSS Labs did not name Check Point specifically, but has now seen fit to pen a follow-up blog in wake of the press coverage the vendor’s marketing own goal has attracted.

In the blog, Bob Walder, president of the independent testing lab, said Check Point’s alteration of its SVM [security value map] was “dumb” and breached its terms and conditions.

“Did it affect the integrity of the underlying research? Categorically not,” he added.

“Just to clarify. Check Point erased a couple of data points on the final graphic, and states this was due to an error made by an outside contractor in the rush to get things ready for RSA,” Walder wrote.

“However, it did not alter the data. It did not alter the position of its device, nor of any of the other devices alongside it.”

Walder stressed that NSS Labs actually spends a lot of time slapping vendors on the wrists over their various marketing exuberances, adding: “While creativity and artistic interpretation are often very useful in the creation of a masterpiece of fiction, never forget that the original subject always remains unchanged by the ministrations of the artist )”

Check Point has so far declined to comment.

For more UK channel coverage from CRN, visit www.channelweb.co.uk

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