UTM/ NGFW

Unified Threat Management and Next Generation Firewall are terms originally coined by market research firms and refer to the concept of a comprehensive security solution provided in a single package. It is basically combining of what used to be accomplished by a number of different security technologies all under a single umbrella or in this case, a single device. On the FortiGate firewall this is achieved by the use of Security Profiles and optimized hardware.

In effect it is going from a previous style of firewall that included among its features:

• Gateway Network Firewall l Routing

• VPN

To a more complete system that includes:

• Gateway Network Firewall l Routing
• VPN
• Traffic Optimization l Proxy Services l Content Filtering l Application Control l Intrusion Prevention l Denial of Service Attack Protection l Anti-virus l Anti-spam l Data Leak Prevention l Endpoint Control of Security Applications l Load Balancing l WiFi Access Management l Authentication Integration into Gateway Security l Logging l Reporting

Advantages of using security profiles

• Avoidance of multiple installations. l Hardware requirements are fewer. l Fewer hardware maintenance requirements. l Less space required. l Compatibility – multiple installations of products increase the probability of incompatibility between systems. l Easier support and management.
• There is only one product to learn therefore a reduced requirement of technical knowledge. l Only a single vendor so there are fewer support contracts and Service Level Agreements. l Easier to incorporated into existing security architecture. l Plug and play architecture. l Web based GUI for administration.