UTM: Single-shot Security
Has increasing usage of IT opened a Pandora’s box of troubles for you? Unified Threat Management can resolve most of your security troubles
The growing adoption of IT and the Internet have simplified your work, and that of your team as well. But they are also the major sources of infections that can compromise the security of your computer. Viruses, spam, spyware, and various other malware are always at hand to strike. It is manually not possible to detect these threats. To tackle this, companies install layers and layers of security to keep their systems secure. Every vulnerable point is covered by a specific security equipment or a software to ensure that the threat is identified, if not at the perimeter level, but at some point before it reaches inside your network.
Though the IT market offers solution for each of these threats, it’s also good to consider a comprehensive measure to tackle them. Today most of the dealers offer you the option of a single integrated box/software, Unified Threat Management (UTM), to safeguard your data and networks. So instead of installing different software/hardware, this all-inclusive security barrier imparts protection against various types of threats that are waiting to plague your system. This is emerging as one of the best modes of security as it covers all threats and all aspects of security including web content filtering, spam and security policies. And they deliver the added advantage of managing your bandwidth so your resources are used optimally.
Most of you are aware of the threat caused by viruses and so you install an antivirus software to counter it. Similarly, firewall is a software (or a hardware) that protects your computer or network from an unauthorized invasion. It acts like a wall between your network and the outside world. It monitors all the activities that are not approved by the administrator. Only after permission is granted for that activity from an authorised person will the firewall let it happen. TO counter spam, you would need to put in some spam control program. To stop intrusions into your network, you would need intrusion detection system (IDS) or intrusion prevention system (IPS).
Then there are other software like content filtering block unauthorised content and allow it only on the basis of analysis of the content, rather than just its source or other criteria. You could install several of these software to handle each type of threat. But making them all work with each other, or having to manage them can get quite challenging.
UTM thus comes to help and simplifies your infrastructure management by providing the all-in-one security pack of necessary security hardware and software. Enterprises from different fields and verticals are adopting this technology for its multiple security features. A UTM typically includes a firewall, an antivirus software, content filtering and a spam filter in a single package along with IPS. The primary advantages of UTM are simplicity, streamlined installation and use, and the capacity to revise all the security functions or programs in tandem.
As the character and intensity of Internet threats evolve into more complex forms, UTM products can be customized to cope with the situation. Some leading UTM vendors include Fortinet, Secure Computing Corporation, Symantec and LokTek.