156-315.81.20 Threat Prevention and SandBlast Practice Question
How can an administrator monitor the effectiveness of the Threat Prevention blades over time?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse SmartConsole reporting and dashboard monitoring with backend gateway CLI commands, incorrectly choosing command-line tools for ongoing visual tracking of security effectiveness over time.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
By using the Threat Prevention dashboard and generating scheduled reports in SmartConsole.
The Check Point SmartConsole provides built-in tools such as the Threat Prevention dashboard and extensive logging and reporting features. These tools allow administrators to visualize trends, review blocked threats, and analyze the impact of security policies. By regularly reviewing these reports, administrators can identify recurring threats, adjust staging settings to prevent, and ensure that the threat prevention posture remains robust against evolving risks, proving the value of the investment in Check Point security.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
By manually reviewing every packet in the packet capture file.
Why it's wrong here
Manually reviewing packets is impractical and inefficient for monitoring overall effectiveness. It is a tool for deep-dive technical troubleshooting of specific connectivity issues, not for high-level monitoring of the effectiveness of security blades or identifying long-term threat trends across the corporate network and user environment.
- ✓
By using the Threat Prevention dashboard and generating scheduled reports in SmartConsole.
Why this is correct
The dashboard and reporting features in SmartConsole provide clear metrics on blocked threats, attack trends, and blade performance. These tools allow administrators to assess the overall security posture and effectiveness of the Threat Prevention deployment, enabling data-driven decisions for policy tuning and infrastructure improvements over time.
- ✗
By checking the CPU load on the security gateway every hour.
Why it's wrong here
Monitoring CPU load is useful for identifying performance bottlenecks, but it provides no information about the effectiveness of the Threat Prevention blades. High CPU usage could be caused by legitimate traffic, misconfigurations, or other system processes, making it an unreliable metric for evaluating the security of the gateway.
- ✗
By testing the gateway's security with public, unverified third-party penetration tools.
Why it's wrong here
Using unverified third-party tools is dangerous and can lead to network instability or false results. It is not an approved method for monitoring the effectiveness of Check Point security blades. Administrators should rely on official Check Point tools and standard testing files like EICAR for verification.
About these practice questions
This 156-315.81.20 question is part of Courseiva's 210-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Check Point exam blueprint
This 156-315.81.20 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Check Point certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 156-315.81.20 exam.