Firewalls are meant to be a mechanism between devices limiting access. When discussing the various types of firewalls or security appliances in general, the talk has changed over the years. Firewalls, Proxy Firewalls, Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW), Unified Threat Managers (UTM), they go by many names now, but they shouldn’t be used interchangeably.
These days, protecting the border remains important despite a defined border fading away. Offices are now hybrid. Wireless, cloud, VPN, file sharing, and mobile devices all heavily blur the idea of having an actual border anymore. Firewalls or UTMs are meant to secure the border between two areas. This could be the handoff to the World Wide Web and the internal network. They can even be functional between guest and trusted networks or various other segments.
Mitigating the Threat Landscape
As the threat landscape evolved, so did the security to mitigate it. Now when someone refers to a firewall they are generally talking about one of two things, a Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) or a Unified Threat Management appliance (UTM). The difference in these is pretty astounding. NGFWs are a big step up from the packet filtering firewalls of yesteryear. Most include features such as Denial of Service protection, stateful packet inspection, deep packet inspection, and many other connection-oriented safeguards.
Beyond that, many gateway security appliances add additional features. Many people still call these firewalls, but really they are much more. Depending on the vendor, this newer class of appliance has been coined as a Unified Threat Management or Unified Threat Gateway appliance (UTM or UTG).
So, What Is the Difference?
A UTM will provide all of the NGFW features but SHOULD also include basics:
- SD-Wan
- Web filtering
- DNS filtering
- Gateway Antivirus
- Gateway Intrusion Prevention (not just detection)
- Data loss prevention
- Application level filtering
- Meaningful logging and reporting capabilities
- Connection filtering based on reputation or geographic location
There are several vendors that provide these features and more. The UTM that we believe provides the best price/functionality/versatility/security is the Firebox series from WatchGuard. While you can get similar feature sets from other vendors, WatchGuard seems to provide the most consistently comprehensive UTM solution for any business size.
With a table top UTM, a small home office can afford gateway security with nearly the same capabilities as a Corporate office. Of course there are many factors that can extend capabilities, but this article is keeping focus to a singular protective device. True NGFW and UTM devices are constantly evolving with security features and updates based on attack trends and abilities.
Next-Generation Firewall
While internet service providers will commonly include a simple next-generation firewall as part of their gateway device, note they are barely next-generation. These may include the absolute basics of protection that have not been considered adequate for nearly a decade. Additionally, be aware if you have a static IP with traffic coming from the web to a device on your network. In that scenario, your ISP often turns off any protection. It is always best to utilize a modern security appliance to handle the ever expanding threat space.
If you have any questions about these features or how a UTM can benefit your business, Upton Technologies can assist.