A normal ATM that you get lunch money out of should be as secure as a bank vault, but just like that ATM has to be filled up everyday by someone - your network can become vulnerable from someone on the inside or outside of the network. ATM's used to be like robots - you give me the right code and I (the ATM) give you cash, then hackers got to them and the security had to be strengthened to the point where hackers now need an inside man. Guess what, the inside man came in the the form of email phishing scams targeting unknowing consumers to give up the code and then out comes the cash.

It hasn't stopped there either, now there is spear phishing where select networks are targeted for info to get whole databases. Not that they need to work so hard with some companies losing databases almost every 3 months or less. Then to give regular firewalls a real workout are blended threats - viruses, worms, trojans, root kits, and other hacks. Running a successful business adds to your responsibilities - more employees, a larger network, larger databases, and possible teleworker vpn options - definitely a job for an appliance that can handle blended threats.

Let's look first at the changes in the SME network security environment and how blended threats have started to trickle down to us little guys. Multinational and large enterprise networks have always fought blended threats - spyware prevention, root kit attacks, spam blocking, intrusion prevention and URL filtering are what the big boys IT departments are using on a daily basis at the gateway to the Internet. Most of the time IT is able to hold back the unknown threats with layered security - yes I said unknown threats. Each one of the threats we know about today became infamous once the damage was done or the attack was blocked to a degree where the loss was not significant. These threats began as unknowns.

And that's the good news, when the big boys trigger tech innovations, the little people always get a taste. The difference is that when an unknown threat attacks our firewall (hopefully we all have some form of security - right), the damages and loss can be catastrophic. But of course all businesses in the very small, small, and medium environments - teleworkers, SOHO, remote office, and slightly larger (6-20) employees have a separate IT department that handles security, storage, compliance officer for security and privacy regulations and money to handle downtime due to lost productivity and data. All businesses of any size are looking for ways to effectively prevent attacks right at the perimeter before it reaches the desktop, when vendor patches and signature-based responses are not available yet.

Blended threats have met their match when it comes to Unified Threat Management, our much larger brethren were tired of buying a new security solution everytime a new threat popped up it's ugly head threatening the network. Their budgets may look unlimited but the bean counters began complaining about the bleeding edge of security even if they could afford the attacks. Integrated security appliances help answer both IT and CFO's dreams by incorporating everything blended threats can throw at a network blocking viruses, worms, spyware, trojans, and other attacks without relying on signatures. No signatures are needed based partly on the effectiveness of 'intelligent layered security' and host intrusion detection, threats are met at the perimeter or rejected by layered security that intelligently adapts to threats before it hits the desktop. This is just a small unified threat management overview to touch upon how it acts as intrusion detection and intrusion prevention devices in one box.

If your business is already secure enough and doesn't need a UTM, a combined intrusion detection and prevention appliance then maybe when the unknown threats attack your network it will keep them away from the desktops in your office. I hope you can sleep well...because your network can never go to sleep.