What is a UTM Firewall Enabled Router and the Top Benefits over a Standard Router

These days, the internet is crucial for the success of any business, big or small. This is the best way for them to do their marketing, offer their products, and get discovered by the customers. However, it is also crucial for communication. Even so, with all the online threats that are present, businesses need to protect themselves, just like individuals.

This used to require multiple individual technologies that would be mixed together and used as a combination of tools. Businesses needed to incorporate a firewall, antivirus, anti-malware, and anti-spyware software, a VPN, email/anti-spam filtering, and much more. This was all quite difficult to combine, and was rather cumbersome, so an alternative needed to be invented, and that is how UTM Firewall was born.

What is UTM Firewall?

UTM, or Unified Threat Management, is a system which can be described as an appliance in the form of hardware, or even as a cloud service which can deliver protection and greater efficiency. It is used by most businesses as a simplified way of incorporating various security methods, techniques, and devices.

In other words, this is a single console with a great number of security features which can improve businesses’ online dealings, and ensure protection from all kinds of different threats.  

It was invented back in 2003, and it was named UTM in 2004. The name stuck, and it has been in use ever since. It is a much better method for companies to protect themselves, as it does not require combining numerous different protection methods manually. It already contains them all, and all it takes is for firms to obtain this single device for ultimate security.

How does it work?

Where regular routers simply regulate network traffic, UTMs deliver enhanced protection, and allow users to take full control of the network security, and manage it as they see fit. The complexity of the process is significantly reduced, while the security goes up.  

UTMs tend to follow specific methods when it comes to inspecting and addressing various threats. This includes things such as flow-based inspection, where the device takes samples of data that flows through, and checks for malicious interference. Then, there are proxy-based inspections, which behaves much like a proxy in order to redefine the content that is trying to enter the UTM device.

Deep levels of the inspection typically ensure that no malicious content can flow through, thus securing the businesses’ internal networks from outside threats. This is also very important to protect business secrets from the competition.

UTM Firewall and UTM Appliance: What is the difference

Another important thing is to understand the difference between UTM Firewall and UTM Appliance. UTM Firewalls can come as hardware or software-based network security tools that can deliver protection against security threats. They act like any firewall, in terms of following sets of standards and rules to check incoming and out coming traffic. Meanwhile, they use archived records to check if the content is malicious or malware-free.

If it detects malicious data, the firewall filters the malware from the data content. Most computers these days come with some form of software-based malware which can protect them.

When it comes to UTM Appliance, this is an additional security tool which only comes in hardware form. It is used for balancing the data load in network and system performance, and it can protect users from issues such as data loss. It still comes with an antivirus solution, intrusion prevention systems, and appliance reporting.  

What are the benefits of using UTM?

Finally, we come to how and why your business will benefit from using a UTM. First of all — UTMs are beneficial to every business and company out there, regardless of their size. As the threat and data managing systems, everyone needs them to protect their networks and sensitive information.

The first and obvious advantage is that you can simply buy and use a single appliance instead of multiple devices. This saves money, space, time, and it reduces difficulties during the very process of securing the network.

Next, the internet is filled with all kinds of threats, and it is much better to secure your business in time than to deal with the aftermath of the attack. UTMs provide a strong layer of protection with no cracks for these threats to slip through, which is not the case when you have combined protection that includes a number of different devices.

It is also much easier to control and manage data, as well as threats caught on their way of entering the network.

Using a single device also requires only one vendor, one support contact, and one single license, as opposed to a dozen others that you would have to secure if you don’t use a UTM. Collaborating with a single vendor is much easier for administrators, and it leads to establishing a strong relationship between the business and the UTM support. Then, UTMs offer IPS inspection that blocks the exploit of vulnerabilities, filters emails, and reduces spam content, and it even contains a VPN.

It is also very useful when it comes to accessing corporate resources remotely and more.

Summary

Clearly, UTM has countless uses, whereas traditional routers cannot provide nearly the same amount of security, protection, and other useful features. UTMs are also much more cost-efficient and crucial when it comes to ensuring the safety of your company and its sensitive data.

Companies are among the prime targets of hackers these days, as information holds greater value than ever before. The dark web is full of stolen secrets, and even legal competition might try to sniff them out and gain the upper hand. In other words, businesses that aim to reach greatness need to grow and expand, and they cannot do so if they have security issues all the time. With a UTM, you can finally get everything covered with a single device and focus more on creating your own corporate empire.

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