Unified Threat Management Overview

Unified Threat Management (UTM) is a term used to describe the consolidation of several security features into one device, protecting against multiple threat types. The advantage of UTM is streamlined installation and management of these multiple security capabilities.

The security features provided as part of the UTM solution are:

• Antispam — E-mail spam consists of unwanted e-mail messages, usually sent by commercial, malicious, or fraudulent entities. The antispam feature examines transmitted e-mail messages to identify e-mail spam. When the device detects an e-mail message deemed to be spam, it either drops the message or tags the message header or subject field with a preprogrammed string. The antispam feature uses a constantly updated spam block list (SBL). Sophos updates and maintains the IP-based SBL. The antispam feature is a separately licensed subscription service.
• Full File-Based Antivirus — A virus is executable code that infects or attaches itself to other executable code to reproduce itself. Some malicious viruses erase files or lock up systems. Other viruses merely infect files and overwhelm the target host or network with bogus data. The full file-based antivirus feature provides file-based scanning on specific Application Layer traffic checking for viruses against a virus signature database. It collects the received data packets until it has reconstructed the original application content, such as an e-mail file attachment, and then scans this content. Kaspersky Lab provides the internal scan engine. The full file-based antivirus scanning feature is a separately licensed subscription service.
• Express Antivirus — Express antivirus scanning is offered as a less CPU intensive alternative to the full file-based antivirus feature. The express antivirus feature, like the full antivirus feature, scans specific Application Layer traffic for viruses against a virus signature database. However, unlike full antivirus, express antivirus does not reconstruct the original application content. Rather, it just sends (streams) the received data packets, as is, to the scan engine. With express antivirus, the virus scanning is executed by a hardware pattern matching engine. This improves performance while scanning is occurring, but the level of security provided is lessened. Juniper Networks provides the scan engine. The express antivirus scanning feature is a separately licensed subscription service.
• Content Filtering — Content filtering blocks or permits certain types of traffic based on the MIME type, file extension, protocol command, and embedded object type. Content filtering does not require a separate license.
• Web Filtering — Web filtering lets you manage Internet usage by preventing access to inappropriate Web content. There are three types of Web filtering solutions. In the case of the integrated Web filtering solution, the decision-making for blocking or permitting Web access is done on the device after it identifies the category for a URL either from user-defined categories or from a category server (Websense provides the CPA Server). The integrated Web filtering feature is a separately licensed subscription service. The redirect Web filtering solution intercepts HTTP requests and forwards the server URL to an external URL filtering server provided by Websense to determine whether to block or permit the requested Web access. Redirect Web filtering does not require a separate license. With Juniper Local Web Filtering, the decision-making for blocking or permitting Web access is done on the device after it identifies the category for a URL from user-defined categories stored on the device. With Local filtering, there is no additional Juniper license or remote category server required.

Related Topics

Junos OS Feature Support Reference for SRX Series and J Series Devices