A unified threat management system or UTM refers to a kind of virtual appliance, cloud service, or a network hardware appliance, which safeguards business corporations from potential security risks through the integration and combination of several features and security services.

Note that the purpose of this discussion is to offer a brief understanding of what is unified threat management, how does it stack up against the next-generation firewalls, its working principle, and standard deployment practices.

Introduction to Unified Threat Management System

Unified threat management system helps safeguard the network from multiple security threats, including attacks and malware that target different network components at the same time.

Virtual network appliances and cloud services based on unified threat management systems are becoming increasingly popular in network security, particularly for medium and small business organizations.Next-generation firewalls or NGFWs and unified threat management systems are comparable at times. Unified threat management system provides several levels of network security functions, all in one system, including next-generation firewalls, antivirus, intrusion prevention and/or detection systems, spam filtering, virtual private networks, and web URL filtering. So cost and complexity of managing multiple devices and multiple operating systems goes away. With UTM, administrators can manage all the security functions through a single console. Additionally, UTM provides much higher level of automation when it comes to security updates, anti-virus definitions, or deploying new features, further driving down the operational costs.

Working Methodology of a Unified Threat Management System

Unified threat management systems offer improved visibility and better protection along with superior governance over network security, reducing complexity to a great extent. It commonly provides this through deep packet inspection techniques that are purpose-designed to contain and resolve a myriad of threats. Some of their key inspection procedures are discussed below in brief.

Stream-based inspection, also known as flow-based inspection, is a data sampling method that examines the incoming data that enters the unified threat management system device. It then uses pattern-matching algorithms for evaluating if the data flow has any malicious content or not.

Proxy-based inspection acts similar to a proxy for reassembling the data entering a unified threat management system device and then performs a complete inspection of the data flow, looking for potential security risks. The content is transmitted to the end-user in the event it’s deemed safe. On the contrary, if any security threat like a virus or the like is found, the questionable content is immediately removed by the device before the webpage or the file is sent to the end-user.

Implementation Procedure of a Unified Management System

A unified threat management system can be readily integrated with your business as a cloud-based service, in the form of software deployment on your existing network server or using unified threat management equipment that’s connected to your organizational network.

Unified threat management systems are particularly beneficial for multi-branched companies or retail stores that have traditionally leveraged a dedicated wide area network but are increasingly utilizing public internet gateways to the data center or headquarters.  Integrating a unified threat management system can offer the businesses superior control and increased perspective on the overall security parameters.

Summary

At Zenmid, we help small and mid-sized businesses seamlessly integrate unified threat management systems powered by cutting-edge technology and infrastructure vendors. Call us now for an initial feasibility assessment by our in-house team of cybersecurity specialists.