Unified threat management solutions, or UTMs, are security solutions built on a single network appliance that handles multiple functions, including antivirus protection, content filtering, and intrusion detection and prevention. They can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud.
Choose a UTM solution that unifies security data and enables intelligent investigation of multi-chain attacks, Indicators of Compromise, and other threat signals under a single dashboard. Cyware makes this possible with brilliant orchestration and automation.
Detection and Response
Detection and response capabilities are typically what a UTM solution focuses on. The cybersecurity industry can often seem like an alphabet soup of acronyms, from EDR to NDR to VDR and even MDR (which stands for managed detection and response).
In addition to reconfiguring the system to detect common malware, a UTM can perform heuristic analysis to flag new, unknown threats.
A UTM’s centralized structure requires less time and resources to monitor than a typical multi-module security setup without unified threat management, resulting in cost savings.
Another advantage of a UTM’s centralized approach is its ability to provide contextual real-time alerts, ensuring faster and more thorough investigation of potential threats.
Many point tools rely on low-level Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) such as IP addresses, file hashes, URLs/domains, and other metadata that malicious actors can easily modify, reducing their effectiveness.
Moreover, a unified threat management (UTM) solution can correlate IOCs with intelligence sources to add context to potential attacks and threat actors. This improves detection speeds and helps reduce the number of false-positive alerts.
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Automation
Security automation capabilities help streamline and enhance security operations, eliminating repetitive tasks that require human intervention. This allows security teams to focus on the most significant threats and reduces the risk of human error.
UTM solutions provide a unified view of network protection through one appliance. They combine multiple functions into a solution, including firewalling, network intrusion prevention and gateway antivirus (AV), gateway anti-spam, load balancing, and on-appliance reporting.
It can help mitigate the need to build and maintain in-house SOC resources, alleviating the pressure of alert fatigue and ongoing SIEM management, the struggle to find qualified security analysts and maintenance costs.
They can also offer personalized service by a team that understands your business and environment with better technology, proactive capabilities, and cost savings compared to an in-house SOC.
Vulnerability management services can identify and respond to vulnerabilities before they are exploited. Continuous monitoring and vulnerability scanning can also help minimize the attack surface. Depending on your security requirements, they can be delivered in a managed service or on-premises.
Orchestration
Unified threat management solutions can centralize monitoring and response by integrating multiple security functions into network firewalls. This simplifies the management of security technologies and provides greater flexibility than an approach that requires separate appliances for each part.
UTMs can also detect and respond to malware threats by filtering them out of data streams or blocking them at the perimeter. They can be preconfigured to identify known malware and use heuristic analysis to identify novel threats not listed in signatures.
In addition to reducing the number of devices and software platforms that need to be managed, unified threat management solutions can increase the security of your network by eliminating vulnerabilities and providing more complete protection.
This includes enabling granular access controls based on least privilege and limiting network traffic with dynamic DNS services.
Some unified threat management solutions offer Managed Defense Services (MDR), providing real-time monitoring and incident response for a predictable subscription fee.
MDR solutions combine human expertise and SIEM capabilities to reduce false positives and improve vulnerability management, detection, and response.
Analytics
Security information and event management (SIEM) helps organizations monitor network devices, security solutions, and endpoints in real-time via a centralized console. However, it relies on rules-based programming to identify known threats, which limits its effectiveness against unknown threats.
Unified threat management, or UTM, combines multiple security features into a single device at your network gateway. This includes firewalls, antivirus and anti-spyware, content filtering, gateway anti-spam, and virtual private network (VPN) support.
By combining the capabilities of specialized security programs into one appliance, UTM simplifies your network’s protection and makes it easier to manage.
Some UTM solutions provide a managed service for an annual subscription fee, where they work detection and response activities for you.
This can reduce complexity and improve performance. Other UTMs offer multi-tenant cloud services with dedicated engineers who become an extension of your security team and perform continuous 24/7 monitoring, incident response, vulnerability scanning/assessment, and reporting for a predictable subscription fee.
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Compliance
Whether a network security manager or IT professional, you probably know about next-generation firewalls (NGF) and UTM solutions.
While NGF vendors tend to focus on a subset of threat protection capabilities to define their products, UTM solutions offer much more than that.
Integrated threat detection and response capabilities eliminate blind spots compromising your team’s ability to identify, prioritize, or score threats. These capabilities also allow you to automate responses across your entire environment, dramatically improving your MTTD and MTTR.
A UTM solution’s identity-based security policies can simplify compliance with regulations like PCI DSS, GDPR, and HIPAA by implementing access controls based on the least privilege. This helps to keep data and systems secure and protected from internal and external cyber-attacks.
Many organizations use a managed security service provider (MSSP) to monitor, maintain, and manage their cybersecurity tools.
While MSSPs can provide value for your organization, you must choose carefully to ensure they meet your requirements and can deliver on their promises. Otherwise, you could be in a risky situation where you don’t completely control your security environment.
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