Whether the business of a company is in manufacturing, sales, finance, marketing or counting eggs each of these industries deals in data. Even before the information age, businesses were dependent on mass quantities of data. While uploading this data and taking businesses online has streamlined IT the world over, it has also left businesses susceptible to malware and other digital threats. In fact, Google, the world’s leading search engine, detects 9,500 malicious and compromised websites every day. With threats like these the key to success is protecting data with an all encompassing approach, and allowing business to run as usual.

In this new world of information, the best offense is founded on a strong defense. This is so, because cyber threats are constantly evolving. Malware, or malicious software, is constantly being developed and fine tuned. Meanwhile, malware that has been deployed previously does not go away after time. Once malware is launched it is often out there for good. This means that IT departments must be able to defend against known and unknown threats. In order to do this many businesses are responding to threats with next generation network security systems as the best solution.

Next generations network security is an umbrella term used to describe any security system that is programmed to combat against unknown cyber threats by staying a step ahead of the game. These new age network security platforms are being realized as a necessary precaution, as incidents of data theft have only risen since 2011 statistics that showed 42,887 losses. Unfortunately know two next generation network security systems are created equal. Many industry professionals have found that quality of products vary drastically, and some of these security systems do not protect against the basics.

The key to proper cyber security is to take a holistic approach. Knowing what qualities to look for in next generation security can help businesses better secure their data, and keep their most valuable assets safe. The first step of any equality security effort is to begin with the basics. Those basics consist of firewalls. Establishing a network firewall can protect against the majority of cyber threats. Wireless intrusion detection systems can be added to detect and halt wireless threats. These systems work much like Network intrusion detection systems, which are programmed to detect and halt malicious software threats. In both cases, network IPS secures data transfers between workers, business and clients.

Unified threat management and your next generation network security can work hand in hand, however one is not meant to replace the other. While quality next generation network security would be able to replace the functions of UTM systems, this action is not reciprocal. Unified Threat management systems should not be used to replace next generation networks.

Once you have selected a next generation network security system, take it for a test drive. In order to be certain that a system will perform as advertised ask about testing a project using different traffic volumes and increasing application inspection functionality. Using these test can weed out the great systems from those that could see firewalls drop down to 50% when confronted by large volumes and multiple tasks.