UTM: The need of the hour

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The latest report by Aberdeen states that Unified Threat Management (UTM) will continue to grow as the best in class organizations are adopting UTM.

The major highlights of the report states that on average more than 120 new vulnerability disclosures are made each week (nearly 90 percent of which could be exploited remotely), and more than 4,00,000 new examples of malware were identified in the last year.

It also states that Best-in-Class organizations are adopting UTM. In Aberdeen’s recent study, ‘Unified Threat Management: What’s In, What’s Next, and Why,’ Best-in-Class organizations (top 20 percent based on performance), in comparison to Laggards (bottom 30 percent), are 80 percent more likely to consolidate IT security in a single device or service, ie adopt a UTM strategy.

According to the recent study by Aberdeen, costs and complexity are top UTM drivers –across all respondents, reducing cost and reducing complexity.

UTM gains quantified—Best-in-Class companies using approach realized the following gains in the last 12 months over those with lagging performance:

20 percent reduction in actual threat/vulnerability related incidents

14 percent reduction in audit deficiencies

11 percent reduction in unscheduled downtime

5 percent reduction in total associated staff

Compared to Laggards, Best-in-Class organizations are nearly three-times more likely to automate enforcement of policies, more than two-times more likely to generate alerts, and about 50 percent more likely to block activities that violate policies.

“Businesses are turning to UTM devices because of their capabilities to address multiple threats, as well as for the tangible benefits of reducing costs and improving efficiencies,” said Derek E Brink, VP and Research Fellow—IT Security, Aberdeen. “As UTM appliances continue to add new features to mitigate future threats, and increase functionality and management capabilities, we expect to see even more businesses utilize best-in-class security practices with UTM appliances,” he added.