Shwed was born in Jerusalem in 1968. He started programming at the age of 13, and two years later began studying computer sciences at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, while he was still in high-school.
In 1993, Shwed founded Check Point together with Shlomo Kramer, Shwed’s friend from the military unit, and Marius Nacht with whom he worked at Optrotech.
In 2002, Shwed appeared on the front cover of Forbes’ Billionaires issue.
In 2010, Shwed was recognized as the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Israel.
He received numerous prestigious accolades for his individual achievements and industry contributions, including an honorary Doctor of Science from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, which he received in June 2005.
Globes, one of Israel's largest financial outlets honored Shwed as their "Person of the Year" in 2014.In September 2017, Shwed was ranked 12th in TheMarker Magazine list.
That year, Shwed invented and patented stateful inspection, which served as the basis for the first version of the company’s renowned FireWall-1, released in 1994. Stateful Inspection is still widely used in network firewalls today.
