How Does a UTM Firewall Protect Your Business?

When you pick up a personal computer from a vendor, chances are that it will have an extremely basic firewall pre-installed. These consumer-grade firewalls leave much to be desired, especially in the business environment. You'll want to make sure that your organization is equipped with enterprise-level solutions designed to protect on both a fundamental level and an advanced level. To do this, you want to take advantage of a Unified Threat Management solution.

Unified threat management (UTM) is a solution in the network security industry and the leading network gateway defence solution for organizations. Perceivably, UTM is the transformation of the traditional firewall into an extensive security product able to operate numerous security functions such as intrusion prevention, anti-virus scanning, load balancing, bandwidth throttling, advanced threat protection, and a number of others that I will go into in detail about, all within one single system. What UTM does is it unites all of the multiple security functions instead of having separate systems performing independently of one another.

A UTM appliance offers many key advantages for managing data threats and protecting networks and sensitive information. Here are some of the advantages of deploying a UTM appliance:

Intrusion Prevention: Intrusion prevention is one of the easier concepts to fathom. It's a precautionary approach to network security used to pinpoint possible threats and react to them promptly. The primary functions of intrusion prevention systems are to identify virulent activity, log the pertinent information about this activity, try to forestall it, and then report it.

Deployment of anti-malware tools: Malware is troublesome at best, so your organization needs to take proactive measures to keep your systems secure. This includes updating your security solutions with the latest threat definitions, which a UTM can automatically accomplish as needed.

Load Balancing: A load balancer is a mechanism that acts as a reverse proxy and apportions network traffic across various servers. Load balancers are used to increase the soundness and capacity of applications. A load balancer is a device that directs network traffic and its duty is to moderate network traffic density so as to not cause traffic jams. Effectively, the load balancing device directing network traffic is responsible for maintaining the efficiency of traffic. This, as it is with traffic guards, allows for applications to run smoothly, much like allowing city services to navigate roads smoothly. So, next time you find your application or network struggling to run efficiently, it is because your little electronic flagger is off duty or inadequate.

Bandwidth Throttling: Bandwidth throttling is the willful tempering of internet service by an internet service provider (ISP). It is a reactive amendment utilized in communication networks to control network traffic and curtail bandwidth