Unified Threat Management (UTM) - The Catch-All Security Appliance

As promised, a follow-up article on security.  

So you've done the right thing, you installed anti-virus / malware / everything software on all your PCs (Windows, Macs, Linux, etc).  You've even gone the extra step of installing security software on your company cell phones.

But what about people who bring in devices that are not company owned?  (e.g. Smartphones, tablets, etc.)  The notion of "BYOD" (Bring Your Own Device) is a reality of today's world, and stifling the creativity of your employees is also counter productive.

What's a small business owner to do?  The answer is quite simple, and as iluded to in the title of this article, Unified Threat Management (UTM) is the answer.  Think of a UTM appliance as your router on steroids.  

It will do everything that your router does today such as acting as a firewall to prevent intrusion attacks as well as managing IP addresses.  But UTM appliances generally have multiple software programs running inside them that inspect the traffic going in and out.

For example, if someone were to click on a link in an e-mail, or on some website that leads to a phishing site, the UTM appliance will catch that and give you a warning or block it entirely (depending on the configuration options selected).  

There's nothing to install on any device.  It's simply placing itself "in the way" of all traffic, sitting quietly in the background.  

Additionally, some devices will have VPN (virtual private networking) abilities built in, allowing for remote access and / or site-to-site access.  Meaning if you have two more locations, they can be on one big "wide area network" (WAN).

Cost of such devices start around $500 (give or take) and can go up from there.  Like most networking hardware, the cost will depend on the size of the network.  But for a small shop with a dozen or so devices, an entry level device should usually do the trick.  Warranties of such business class devices are generally much better than consumer routers.  For example, Netgear's UTM appliances come with lifetime hardware warranties.  Meaning you'll never buy it again in the event of a failure.