UTM Vs Firewall: Which to choose?
Today, we have an NGFW (Next Generation Firewall) that ensures better security. At the same time, there is another option that allows you to use a slightly more versatile option called a UTM (Unified Threat Management) appliance. Many users tend to use these two terms in a sense like NGFW and UTM.
Gone are the days of being healthy with a simple product called an ‘Antivirus.’
Let’s take a closer look at the purposes of these two and their differences. Let’s go to a brief discussion of Unified Threat Management and Next Generation Firewall.
UTM firewall enhances data protection by giving you complete control over network security in multiple ways. There are several ways to protect your business from security threats in a simple way. It is a software-based or hardware-based network security tool that protects your data and personal information and prevents various types of external security threats. The main function of the UTM firewall is to follow some rules to detect unwanted external threats. UTM Firewalls are initially installed on individual devices and work as soon as they detect potential external threats. Firewalls are primarily used for small network systems.
The UTM Firewalls works in Flow based inception and Proxy based inception. A flow-based process collects data samples from UTM devices. It then checks to see if there are any disturbances in the data flow and if the problem is external. The proxy-based process works in a similar way, the only difference is that it appears as a proxy and checks and maintains the potential for security threats.
All security features are centralized in a single product, so you can highlight performance issues to the limits of your UTM firewall. This issue is manifested in corporate environments with high packet volumes and lack of hardware, resulting in compromised processing of security rules applied to the environment.
Next Generation Firewalls are one of the most important defenses for businesses to combat digital threats. You assume the firewall as a gatekeeper between your organization’s servers and the outside world. Proper maintenance of the firewall protects the server from external threats, alerts users, and handles more subtle issues than intercepting ongoing data.
NGFW are connected to antimalware products can protect your business from cyberattacks and virus infections. Connecting a computer to the World Wide Web is like allowing outsiders to come in with the front door open. Therefore, a firewall is essential to act as a doorkeeper. A firewall is software that sits between your computer or network and the Internet. In other words, firewall software is installed with the purpose of inspecting all inbound and outbound packets of data, checking for malicious or inappropriate content and allowing or denying data entry packets into the system.
Next Generation Firewall aims to use IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) and DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) to filter unwanted external malicious content. It provides organizations with several benefits such as intrusion prevention, network visibility and application control. Delivered in multi-functional software, including malware content search, access, geo-location detection and detection of data packets. It provides stateful inspection, active directories, routing modes and visibility for users.
NGFW’s major contribution lies in technological advances arising from deep packet inspection and visibility of applications, regardless of protocol and port. By combining these features, you can not only avoid attacks, but also create more dynamic and efficient access control policies for today’s security challenges.
To keep your server safe, there are some features used by firewalls that we will briefly discuss:
- Filtering
- Internal Threats
- Geo-location Detection
- Stateful Inspection
- Deep Packet Inspection
- Integrated intrusion prevention
- Integration with other security solutions
- Inbuilt Antivirus and Anti-Bot solution
- Advanced malware detection such as sandboxing
- Able to monitor SSL or other encrypted traffic
- Centralized Management, Administration, Logging and Reporting
UTM Vs Firewall: Which to choose?
The boundary between the two has become very blurry over the years. IT experts often referred to UTM firewalls as NextGen firewalls or vice versa, and did not make this more explicit.
It is quite Evident is that all the security functions of UTM are Integrated in NGFW with more advanced protocols. A NGFW should not be confused with a stand-alone network intrusion prevention system (IPS), which includes a commodity or non enterprise firewall, or a firewall and IPS in the same appliance that are not closely integrated. They are deep packet inspection firewalls that go beyond port / protocol scanning and blocking to add application-level inspection, intrusion prevention, and intelligence outside the firewall. On the other hand UTM has several different weaknesses that can be exploited by hackers. The most prominent weaknesses that UTMs suffer from are latest updates, area limitations, day one security factors, deep packet filtering, geo-locations identifiers, performance constraints, single point of failure etc.
NGFW is an all-in-one UTM virtual appliance which provides a far-reaching suite of boundary and network security features. It consolidates functionality and management of old tech solutions in an integrated modern and high end dashboard.
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