Israel's Check Point data shows October cyberattack rise

Israeli-based Check Point Software Technologies said on Monday that its business had continued to operate as planned since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began this month.

Check Point Chief Executive Gil Shwed said 98% of the company's customers were outside Israel and it had successfully launched new technologies and completed acquisitions.

Shwed said Check Point's data showed that over the past three weeks, since Hamas-led terrorists stormed through the south of Israel on Oct. 7, there had been an 18% rise in cyberattacks in the country, with 52% against the government sector.

Check Point on earlier reported a higher than expected profit for the third quarter, boosted by double-digit revenue growth in subscriptions for its platform that prevents attacks across networks, mobile and the cloud.

The company said it earned $2.07 per diluted share excluding one-off items in the July-September quarter, up 17% from $1.77 a year earlier. Revenue grew 3% to $596 million.

It was forecast to earn $2.02 a share on revenue of $591.5 million, according to I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv.

Situation has begun to improve

Shwed said that a year ago companies had been keeping their existing firewalls for longer rather than updating them. But now, the situation has begun to improve.

"I am seeing some positive changes and I hope they will carry the next few quarters," he told a news conference.

"The last quarter clearly shows that we are in a very good trend of a positive change. I'm actually quite positive about the business trend that we're seeing."

Check Point said it bought back 2.48 million shares in the quarter, worth $325 million, as part of its ongoing $2 billion share buyback program.

Its Nasdaq listed shares were down 2.9% at $128.02 in pre-market trading.