Check Point (NASDAQ:CHKP) is well positioned to capitalize on the strong demand for cyber solutions and profit from cloud storage and IoT segments growth. The advantage of Check Point is the wide range of solutions offered, which cover almost all segments of the cybersecurity market. The company is delivering strong financial results on superior profitability, while the growing IT spending and cyber security awareness could allow CHKP to expand by double-digits further. This will be facilitated by the development of Infinity architecture, which provides comprehensive solutions in the fields of network, cloud and mobile cybersecurity, and reinforcing it with advanced solutions across all vectors. I am bullish on CHKP, as the stock appears undervalued compared to the sector, and has good upside potential.

Outlook

Amid the key trend in the TMT sector in 2023 of digitalization and metaverses development, strengthening of cyber defense also align here. Against the backdrop of the digital transformation, information security is becoming a priority. With the introduction of a large number of technologies and devices, the risks of encountering cybercrime is rising, which requires investments in protection.

Check Point occupies one of the leading positions with a wide range of solutions offered, which cover broad segments of the cybersecurity market. I believe that the company has a good prospect to further strengthen its position amid the backdrop of fast-growing sectors like cloud storage and the IoT.

Robust demand for cyber security solutions has enabled Check Point to deliver strong performance, even in the current challenging economic environment. Revenue in the third quarter of 2022 accelerated by 8.2% YoY and reached $578 million due to continuation of double-digit growth in products and security subscriptions.

Additionally, deferred revenues saw 13% YoY growth to $1.7 billion, while billings amounted to $559 million, up 8% YoY in Q3 alone.

Another strength of the company, which splits up CHKP from its competitors with a moat, is high profitability readings compared to the sector's players.

From the 88% gross margin in Q3, the operating margin stood at 38.3%, which is 370bps down on the back of cost pressure (+15.1% YoY). The latter came across as the cost for raw materials and shipping increased as a result of the shortages. Although management noted some relief in the shortages, some pressure on profitability could take hold for a while, steaming form the need for higher spending on promoting new products and services.

With global software spending expected to grow 11.3% in 2023, I expect cyber defense spending to follow suit.

Following the outperforming growth of data center systems in 2022, software spending should now take over, ensuring the high utilization of that infrastructure as a result of increased implementation of machine learning, IoT, cloud and big data. I believe Check Point, as one of the major players in the cyber industry, is well positioned to benefit from this trend.

On the balance sheet, a strong cash position coupled with resilient cash flow generation capacity gives the company an ability to further drive organic growth and M&A activity, as well as capital return to shareholders though buyback programs.

To sum up the industry trends, the pandemic tilted business models and consumer behavior to digital technologies. The popularity of various cloud and online services and digital payments is growing rapidly, while the hybrid work environment has become the new normal. This is a perfect landscape for the intensification of cyberattacks. Against this background, information security will most likely continue to be one of the priority items in the context of further digital business transformation.

Valuation

The company also gives an updated full-year projection, with revenue ranging from $2.2 billion to $2.4 billion and EPS (non-GAAP) in the $7.2 to $7.4 range, where both are at the high end of expectations. I am bullish about the prospects of CHKP delivering financials at the high end, and incorporate $2.4 billion sales and $7.40 EPS for the fair value estimate.

Based on the Seeking Alpha valuation section, Check Point is currently trading at a 17% discount to the sector median on forward P/E. However, the significant premium of 74% to the sector median levels could be spotted on the forward EV/Sales multiple. I believe that P/E is a more suitable multiple for the valuation of Check Point due to the superior profitability of the company compared to the sector's peers.

I will put it another way, if we incorporate EV/Sales multiple in the valuation, we will disregard the company's huge profitability advantage compared to the competition.

Applying the EPS of $7.40, the model yields Equity value of circa $19 billion and corresponds to $152 fair value per share with a 21.5% upside potential to the current price. During the third quarter, Check Point conducted a buyback for $325 million, and continuation of the repurchases will provide an additional boost to fill the fundamental gap.

Risk factors

Further tightening of monetary policy could increase the volatility of technology sector, which continued to gradually acquire the features of traditional industries that are highly responsive to the changes in the macroeconomic situation. In addition, recession fears could restrain spending on cybersecurity, which will negatively affect Check Point's financial performance.

Conclusion

I believe CHKP deserves a Buy recommendation, and represents an attractive opportunity steaming from the low valuation compared to the sector and its own historical levels as well. Check Point kept on growing with double-digits in product and security subscription revenues, while rising software spending should provide for sustainable demand for the company's cyber security solutions going forward, especially on the backdrop of the growing application of big data, IoT and cloud computing. Additionally, the e-gov initiatives around the world, along with demand from healthcare and manufacturing will underpin the use of cyber security solutions. It's worth also highlighting the strong balance sheet of the company with zero debt, which allows it to generate good cash flows and allocate significant funds to shareholders through buyback programs.

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - A new TSA checkpoint in Terminal 1 of the Daniel K. Inouye Airport is set to open next week.

The City said the new four-lane checkpoint will open Saturday, Feb. 18.

It’s located on the makai end of Terminal 1 in Lobby 3.

A blessing for the new checkpoint will be held Friday morning at 9 a.m.

The TSA pre-check area has now been relocated to the future site of the new checkpoint.

The old checkpoint will be decommissioned by Monday afternoon. Officials said it will become an exit only for anyone leaving the sanitized area of Terminal 1 and additional bathrooms will be constructed

Copyright 2023 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.

Facial recognition technology has come a long way in recent years, spurred in equal parts by convenience and the priorities of government snoops. Now, if you plan to go a long way via air travel, you can expect to be required to stare into a camera as a computer algorithm scans your features to make sure you're no imposter. The TSA is trying out facial recognition technology at airports as a means of ensuring that travelers are who they claim to be and speeding security lines. It's, maybe, an improvement for impatient travelers, but even more so for the never-satisfied security state.

"The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at Denver International Airport (DEN) has deployed the next generation of Credential Authentication Technology (CAT) to verify the identity of travelers," the TSA announced last November. "First generation CAT units are designed to scan a traveler's photo identification, confirm the traveler's identity as well as their flight details. The new CAT units, referred to as CAT-2, have the same capabilities, but are also equipped with a camera that captures a real-time photo of the traveler."

The rollout began earlier, with the TSA exploring biometric technologies and then testing the use of facial recognition scanners at airports including LAX. By December 2022, The Washington Post's Geoffrey Fowler noted "the Transportation Security Administration has been quietly testing controversial facial recognition technology for passenger screening at 16 major domestic airports."

Theoretically, travelers can opt out in favor of regular ID checks. But anybody who flies much knows how well things often go when you stand on your rights with the TSA—it's a great way to end up in a back room. Just weeks after writing up the rollout, Fowler told PBS: "since my column came out, readers said they followed that, went up to the podium and got pushback" when they objected to the facial scan.

Among the reasons for objecting to facial recognition scans, reliability is often mentioned.

"Federal government algorithms from 2019 found people with Black or Asian ancestry could be up to 100 times less accurately identified than white men," Fowler pointed out to PBS.

But reliability can be improved as shortcomings are addressed. Just a few years ago, facial recognition often faltered when people masked their faces, such as (to little apparent public-health benefit) during the pandemic. "Even the best of the 89 commercial facial recognition algorithms tested had error rates between 5% and 50% in matching digitally applied face masks with photos of the same person without a mask," the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) found in 2020.

In new tests just months later, failure rates plunged as algorithms refocused on details of the eyes and nose that aren't covered by face masks. There's little reason to believe that algorithms can't be refined to distinguish people's identity through differences in facial features and skin color.

That said, highly reliable facial recognition only amplifies a lot of other concerns about the surveillance state. Improving Big Brother's competence just sticks us with a more robust Big Brother.

"Facial recognition is a dangerous and invasive surveillance technology that lacks federal safeguards and can too easily be expanded," the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Jeramie Scott objects. "TSA should end its facial recognition program as a step towards reeling back-in the use of facial recognition by the federal government. We must not sit idly by while the infrastructure for mass face surveillance is created."

"Identity-based domestic security programs condition our mobility to freely assemble, associate, speak, and exchange ideas upon the government's permission to do so," adds the Identity Project, which supports the right to travel without document requirements. "Demands on citizens to 'show their ID' have spread from airports to all major forms of long distance public transport."

Fundamentally, even if we take the TSA and other agencies at their word that they want to use facial recognition to identify travelers as seamlessly and accurately as possible, they still intend to identify travelers. The whole project is based on the premise that nobody should be able to anonymously go from place to place. But it wasn't so long ago that, so long as you paid your fare, you could largely travel where you pleased with minimal need to disclose your name.

"Airline travel in the early 1960s was still fairly carefree: If you had a ticket, you could board a plane," the Los Angeles Times observed in 2014.

"As a general rule, until 1941, U.S. citizens were not required to have a passport for travel abroad," reports the National Archives.

The assumption that you should have to prove your identity at all is quite a leap, before we get to discussions about technology, reliability, and records retention. There's probably little short-term chance of reviving the days of anonymous travel, but some lawmakers are raising civil libertarian concerns about the TSA's rush to embrace facial recognition.

"Countries like China and Russia use facial recognition technology to track their citizens," Rep. Jim Jordan (R–Ohio) objected in January. "Do you trust Joe Biden's TSA to use it as well?"

Members of the president's own party also oppose the scheme.

"Increasing biometric surveillance of Americans by the government represents a risk to civil liberties and privacy rights," Senators Ed Markey (D–Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D–Ore), Cory Booker (D–NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), and Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) wrote last week to TSA Administrator David Pekoske. "Currently if a U.S. traveler shows up to one of the 16 airports testing this technology, they will be met with a facial identification scanner before they can proceed to their flight. Thousands of people daily are encountering a decision to travel or safeguard their privacy- a decision that threatens our democracy."

Incidentally, even if you think anonymous travel is best left in the past, it's not obvious what peril facial recognition is supposed to defeat. A 2021 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) report revealed that its own earlier facial recognition test bagged few phonies out of tens of millions of scanned faces (23 million in fiscal year 2020 alone).

"Since the program's inception, in 2018, CBP officers at U.S. airports have successfully intercepted seven impostors who were denied admission to the United States and identified 285 imposters on arrival in the land pedestrian environment," the report boasted.

Facial recognition is an increasingly effective technology. But in government hands it's more effective at threatening our privacy and liberty than at offering any real benefit.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – A sobriety checkpoint will be held in Hampden County to help prevent under the influence driving.

Colonel Christopher S. Mason, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, states the checkpoint will be held somewhere in the county between this Friday and Saturday. Sobriety checkpoints are randomly done to help educate drivers and bring awareness to detecting a motorist driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs.

State Police say the checkpoints will be done during various hours and the selection of vehicles will not be arbitrary. Signs will also inform drivers of an upcoming checkpoint to reduce fear and anxiety.

This sobriety checkpoint was funded through a grant by the Officer of Grants and Research of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.

The night before New Year's Eve, police had someone flee a DUI checkpoint — and they gave chase.

According to a sheriff's release, it all happened about 9:30 at Hermitage and Long Meadow Road.

The car, dark in color, was nearing the checkpoint when it made what police claim was an "abrupt" left turn on Old Hermitage and went the other way. When a deputy followed, police claim the driver threw a bag of something white out of the car.

The deputy started a chase. The sheriff's office has been criticized in the past for its high-speed chases that have at times been pursued through busy areas without ending it.

This chase went into the City of Waynesboro and back into Augusta County on Rockfish Road, the police said. The cop lost the suspect, then another deputy joined the chase. The suspect hid their car in a driveway off of RockfishRoad, police said, "then backed the vehicle out of the driveway into the roadway blocking the lane of travel, attempting to go the opposite direction, thus causing the deputy to crash.

"The suspect vehicle fled the scene. Minutes later, the suspect vehicle was sighted in the Grottoes area. Deputies attempted to stop the vehicle using tire deflation devices that were not successful."

Police claim the suspect stopped on East Side near Patterson Mill Road, bailed out of the car and ran while throwing drugs on the ground — more than a pound of meth in total.

The suspect, Brandon M. Anderson, 43 of Staunton was arrested without incident.

Virginia State Police looked into the crash that involved the deputy. They charged Anderson with felonyhit & run, felony assault on an officer and multiple traffic violations.

The ACSO charged Anderson with felony eluding and possession with intent to distribute. Anderson is being held without bond at the jail.

The officer involved in the crash was taken to Augusta Health with minor injuries, treated andreleased.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Running from a DUI checkpoint, suspect leads Va. cops on chase

Investors are always looking for stocks that are poised to beat at earnings season and Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. CHKP may be one such company. The firm has earnings coming up pretty soon, and events are shaping up quite nicely for their report.

That is because Check Point is seeing favorable earnings estimate revision activity as of late, which is generally a precursor to an earnings beat. After all, analysts raising estimates right before earnings — with the most up-to-date information possible — is a pretty good indicator of some favorable trends underneath the surface for CHKP in this report.

In fact, the Most Accurate Estimate for the current quarter is currently at $2.38 per share for CHKP, compared to a broader Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.35 per share. This suggests that analysts have very recently bumped up their estimates for CHKP, giving the stock a Zacks Earnings ESP of +1.22% heading into earnings season.

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. Price and EPS Surprise

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. price-eps-surprise | Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. Quote

Why is this Important?

A positive reading for the Zacks Earnings ESP has proven to be very powerful in producing both positive surprises, and outperforming the market. Our recent 10-year backtest shows that stocks that have a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better show a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time, and have returned over 28% on average in annual returns (see more Top Earnings ESP stocks here).

Given that CHKP has a Zacks Rank #3 and an ESP in positive territory, investors might want to consider this stock ahead of earnings. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Clearly, recent earnings estimate revisions suggest that good things are ahead for Check Point, and that a beat might be in the cards for the upcoming report.

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SAN CARLOS, Calif., Feb. 13, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: CHKP) today announced that its board of directors has authorized a $2.0 billion expansion of the company’s on-going share repurchase program. Under the extended share repurchase program, Check Point is authorized to continue repurchasing its shares up to $325 million each quarter.

As of December 31, 2022, Check Point had approximately 120.8 million ordinary shares outstanding, and since the beginning of the share repurchase program, Check Point has repurchased approximately 204 million shares for a total purchase price of approximately $13 billion. The updated plan extends the company’s existing repurchase program from August 2021, which is expected to be completed during the second quarter of 2023.

Under the extended repurchase program, shares may be repurchased from time to time in open market transactions, in privately negotiated transactions or by other means in accordance with applicable securities laws and regulations. The genuine timing, number and value of the shares repurchased will depend on market conditions, share price, trading volume and other factors. For all or a portion of the authorized repurchase amount, Check Point may enter into a plan that is compliant with Rule 10b5-1 of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that is designed to facilitate these purchases. The repurchase program does not require Check Point to acquire a specific number of shares and may be suspended from time to time or discontinued. The share repurchases are expected to be funded from available working capital.

About Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (https://www.checkpoint.com/) is a leading provider of cyber security solutions to corporate enterprises and governments globally. Check Point Infinity´s portfolio of solutions protects enterprises and public organizations from 5th generation cyber-attacks with an industry leading catch rate of malware, ransomware, and other threats. Infinity comprises four core pillars delivering uncompromised security and generation V threat prevention across enterprise environments: Check Point Harmony, for remote users; Check Point CloudGuard, to automatically secure clouds; and Check Point Quantum, to protect network perimeters and datacenters, all controlled by the industry’s most comprehensive, intuitive unified security management; Check Point Horizon, a prevention-first security operations suite. Check Point protects over 100,000 organizations of all sizes.

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Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or our future financial or operating performance. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements related our expectations regarding Check Point’s share repurchase program and the updated share repurchase program. Check Point’s expectations and beliefs regarding these matters may not materialize, and genuine results or events in the future are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause genuine results or events to differ materially from those projected. These risks include our ability to continue to develop platform capabilities and solutions; customer acceptance and purchase of our existing products and solutions and new products and solutions; the continued effects on our business of the COVID-19 pandemic, the market for IT security continuing to develop; competition from other products and services; and general market, political, economic and business conditions; the market conditions, share price, trading volume of Check Point’s ordinary shares; Check Point’s strategic decisions regarding use of capital; and Check Point’s working capital available for share repurchases. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to other risks and uncertainties, including those more fully described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 14, 2022. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to Check Point as of the date hereof, and Check Point disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

©2023 Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved