Subscribe to the Free Print Edition!
Celebrating 25 Years

GCN Home > 07/02/07 issue

Secures what ails you

Unified threat management offers multiple levels of protection in a single dose

By Edmund X. DeJesus, Special to GCN

Unified threat management sounds like a miracle cure. Have security problems? Just use UTM for fast relief! Supports your security seven ways!

The truth isn’t much different. Agencies face multiple security threats: viruses and other malware, spam, phishing, intrusions, and more-sophisticated attacks.

That’s why UTM solutions include multiple components, including some combination of firewall, intrusion detection or intrusion prevention, content filtering, antivirus or anti-malware, anti-spam, and a virtual private network. They may also offer services such as bandwidth management. UTMs act on network traffic, including e-mail, HTTP and File Transfer Protocol.

The original UTM solution was oriented toward small and midsize businesses with limited resources. These enterprises couldn’t afford to buy multiple boxes to address each class of threat separately. They also couldn’t support large IT staffs to handle security or babysit multiple boxes. UTMs provide a good security answer.

Since that start, however, UTMs have surfaced in many other settings. Large enterprises frequently use them at remote sites that have limited IT staff — and limited security concerns. They also find extensive use at the edges of enterprise networks.

The usefulness for government agencies is similar. For small and midsize offices, including remote sites, UTM may be all the security necessary. For larger installations, edge and in-network use is common.

“Determine what applications you will be running: firewall, VPN, intrusion detection or intrusion prevention, gateway antivirus, and so forth,” said Charles Kolodgy, research director at IDC and originator of the term “unified threat management.” Using UTMs also reduces the number of systems that government agencies must support. Stacks of multiple components have evolved into integrated security appliances. Single-platform solutions are more attractive than multiple-platform solutions, from both security and support points of view.

Manageability is important for a system being built at the Army’s Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. “The network staff here is two people,” said Brent Martinez, president of Secure Network Innovation, which is installing the system. “We appreciate that this solution doesn’t require a lot of attention to run perfectly.” What’s more, the reduced cost of a single solution is a significant inducement. As a bonus, finger-pointing by multiple vendors when problems occur is minimized with a single box handling all the jobs.

More news on related topics: Communications / Networks, IT Security, Storage Management, IT Management



GCN Popup