Sophos Home, our free security solution for the whole family, has been available for a few months now, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

The home IT heroes and professional sysadmins who’ve tried Sophos Home have been “very impressed,” with some saying it’s “amazing” that we’re giving everyone a commercial-grade security product for free.

Professional reviewers from respected tech publications like PC Magazine and ZDNet have put Sophos Home to the test and their reviews are equally positive.

Here’s what the reviewers and users of Sophos Home are saying so far.

PC Magazine

“Very good scores from independent labs. Excellent scores in our anti-phishing and malicious URL blocking tests. Simple, clean interface. Powerful remote monitoring and management. Protects Windows or Mac systems.”

PC Magazine gave Sophos Home an Editor Rating of “Excellent,” noting that “labs love it” because of how well Sophos Home performs in third-party anti-malware, anti-phishing and performance tests.

Sophos Home “turned in an excellent performance” in tests measuring how well it blocks malicious URLs of websites hosting malware and phishing sites.

PC Magazine commented favorably on Sophos Home’s ease-of-use and remote management capability, saying the dashboard “exhibits a pleasant simplicity.”

ZDNet

“I’ve been testing Sophos Home for a couple of weeks now and I’ve found it to be easy to use, reliable, and not heavy on system resources. It’s also picked up on every bit of malware that I’ve been able to throw at it. And to top that off, Sophos Home will never nag you to upgrade to a paid product.”

ZDNet’s review remarked on how easy it is to install Sophos Home on your PCs and Macs: just sign up for an account, download Sophos Home, and you’re done!

ZDNet says the ability to manage security for up to 10 computers is an “awesome feature.”

Simply send a link from the dashboard to anyone whose computer security you want to manage (family, friends, neighbors), and you can monitor their security from your Sophos Home account using any web browser.

Sophos Home automatically protects computers against viruses, phishing websites and malicious downloads. You’ll get an alert in the dashboard about cleaned-up threats, blocked websites, and potentially unwanted applications (PUAs).

Users just like you

There’s another feature of Sophos Home that’s getting rave reviews from users – it’s great for protecting your kids with built-in web filtering that allows you to block inappropriate websites.

“Needless to say, Sophos has gone above and beyond again. I love the fact that I can monitor and manage machines right from a web interface. You can actually apply machine specific internet filters as well if you have kids that have their own computer or you don’t want them going to certain sites.” – Brian C., Network Administrator

People just love how easy it is to install and use Sophos Home.

“The download and install is quick and easy and the interface is simple to understand and use. The value of this system is priceless as it protects your computers from the elements out there. Thanks Sophos for making another great product!” – DeWayne N., Small Business Owner

And the fact that Sophos Home is totally free is impressive (and surprising) to many users.

“Super easy to install and an amazing amount of functionality, especially for a free product. You could have easily charged for this, but it’s amazing that you didn’t!! 🙂” – Spiceworks Member Kaiju Nexus

As ZDNet says: “Why pay for a home antivirus solution where you can get excellent protection for absolutely nothing?”

Plus, we’ll never nag you with ads or require you to “upgrade” to a paid version. Free means free!

Visit sophos.com/home to get signed up, and start protecting the whole family.

You can read the original article here.

The Internet of Things (or IoT for short) is rapidly expanding to include an unprecedented number of connected devices. All the smart things coming online need to be secured, but sadly, security seems to be low on the list of priorities for IoT manufacturers and developers.

There’s a very broad array of consumer and industrial applications for the IoT: wearables, TVs, thermostats, lighting, security cameras, drug infusion pumps, electricity meters, toys, cars, and much more. What can be done to make sure our devices are safe from snoops and hackers?

James Lyne, Sophos global head of security research, addresses this important issue during a keynote session at Mobile World Congress, taking place the week of 22-25 February.

If you’re attending MWC in Barcelona, check out James’s talk on Thursday 25th February, from 11:00-12:00, in Hall 4 (the Conference Village).

And stop by the Sophos stand, 5H31, in exhibition Hall 5. You can chat with our experts, see demonstrations of our award-winning mobile security and mobility management technologies, and have a chance to grab some of our popular give-aways.

If you can’t make it to MWC, we’ll report back on all the happenings at the show, and we’ll be sharing the results of James’s research into the poor security practices employed by mobile app developers.

Watch James Lyne’s keynote from MWC 2016

Also, watch his fascinating presentation from last year’s MWC 2015.

In the video, you can see James hack into an Android tablet over Wi-Fi to record video and audio, and demonstrate how insecure CCTV cameras that use weak or no passwords can be breached from the other side of the world.

You can read the original article here.

Sophos, is pleased to announce the first maintenance release for XG Firewall, with a number of important fixes to improve the operation of your firewall. We also wanted to take this opportunity to outline our release notes strategy for future firewall and UTM releases.

For major feature releases, Sophos will continue to publish notifications here on the Sophos Blog highlighting the new features and capabilities, with links to the complete release notes on the Sophos Community Forums.

For all maintenance releases, Sophos will soon begin publishing notifications and release notes on the Sophos Community Forums only, so we encourage you to subscribe to the community product blogs to keep up with all the latest releases.

You can find XG Firewall release notes in the Sophos XG Firewall Community Blog.

UTM 9 maintenance release notes will similarly be published in the Sophos UTM 9 Community Blog.

Subscribe to email alerts

When using the community forums, be sure to log in using your Sophos ID. Then you can subscribe to the product blogs by turning notifications on in the More menu.

This will alert you via email whenever new articles are posted.

If you don’t have a Sophos ID, you can still subscribe to the blogs via email. Click the Gear icon in the upper right area of the screen to subscribe for updates via email, or bookmark these blogs and check back regularly.

RSS Reader

You may also subscribe in your preferred RSS/Atom feed reader, using the links below.

UTM 9 | RSS | ATOM

XG Firewall  | RSS | ATOM

Twitter

Follow us on Twitter: @SophosSupport will begin announcing new firmware updates, and link to this blog. You can also follow @Sophos_news to stay current on the latest news.

If you’re wondering how to do firmware updates or roll-backs on your XG Firewall, we’ve got a new video for you, covering everything you need to know to keep your firewall up to date.

You can read the original article here.

The much anticipated beta for UTM Elevated 9.4 is now underway. If you’re wondering what’s new with UTM Elevated 9.4 and how it’s elevating protection against targeted and evasive threats, be sure to watch the brief overview video including a demo of the new Sophos Sandstorm sandboxing technology.

You can get access to the downloads and the beta license from this post on the Sophos Community forum.

Please go to the UTM Elevated 9.4 beta forum to offer feedback or to ask questions about the beta.

Here’s a summary of the great new features in UTM Elevated 9.4:

Extending zero-day protection

Today’s hackers are employing more targeted attacks with highly evasive never before seen malware designed to breach security systems to gain access to a company’s resources, credentials and data. So while conventional anti-malware is still a critical first line of defense, it’s no longer enough in combating modern attacks.

Most next-generation sandboxing solutions designed to identify unknown malware are too complex and expensive for most businesses like yours to even consider. That’s why we’ve developed Sophos Sandstorm, a new subscription option that gives you an advanced malware defense solution that’s effective and affordable. Sandstorm is a cloud-based sandbox solution that provides targeted attack protection, visibility and analysis that rises above the competition.

Watch the video:

It’s simple:

• Easy to try – sign up through MyUTM and benefit from instant protection
• Easy to deploy – simply activate the policy
• Easy to manage – through your usual UTM workflow

It’s effective:

• Blocks evasive threats – detects threats designed to evade sandboxes that other solutions miss
• Policy control – simple, efficient policy control
• Visible protection – granular, incident-based reports

It’s cloud-based:

• Rapid deployment – instant protection with no hardware to deploy or appliance upgrade needed
• Minimal impact on performance – all processing done in the cloud
• Collective intelligence – analysis of threats detected across the broad Sophos customer base

And perhaps most importantly, it’s affordable. Sophos Sandstorm will be available in UTM 9.4 as a new Protection Subscription, at a great value price-point compared to competing enterprise solutions in this category. It’s enterprise-grade protection without the enterprise-grade price tag or enterprise-grade complexity.

Expanding the hardware lineup

UTM Elevated 9.4 adds support for a number of new hardware options, further extending our top-performing hardware line up.

SG 85(w) brings new New SG Series Appliances to the low-end of the line. The SG 85 is available in both an integrated wireless (w) model and without wireless. It is ideal for extremely price-sensitive deployments like retail or SOHO. Expected availability of the SG 85(w) is March 2016.

4x10G SFP+ Flexi-Port Module for the 1U SG Series models brings a whole new level of flexible connectivity and performance with four port support for a variety of optical or electrical transceivers. Expected availability is March 2016.

RED 15w adds integrated wireless to the new RED 15 with a single radio supporting 802.11n 2×2:2 MIMO.  Expected availability is March 2016 with similar (aggressive) pricing to the new XG 85w.

AP 15c packages the popular, new and affordable entry-level access point into a ceiling smoke-detector type chassis. It offers the same great performance and value as the AP 15 desktop model with a single radio with 300Mbps of 802.11n throughput – but now with a choice of band (either 2.4GHz or 5GHz).  Expected availability is March 2016.

Enhancing the firmware features

UTM Elevated 9.4 also delivers some of your top-requested features.

WAF Persistent Session Cookies improve the user experience when interacting with business applications protected by the Sophos UTM, reducing repeated sign-in prompts.

STAS (Sophos Transparent Authentication Suite) provides reliable transparent SSO authentication for network users, without requiring a client on the endpoint. STAS employs an agent on the Microsoft Active Directory Server that monitors and stores authentication activity and exchanges authentication information with the UTM, making user-based policy rules and enforcement easy.

IPv6 SSL VPN Support adds much requested support for IPv6 VPN connectivity with the UTM.

Looking beyond

While UTM Elevated 9.4 is a substantial release, it’s one more in what has been, and will continue to be, a great series of updates to this award-winning product. We have even more great plans for this product with UTM 9.5 and 9.6 releases already in the early planning stages, promising to bring you even more value, simplicity and security.

You can read the original article here.

Sophos, a global leader in network and endpoint security, has received the 2015 AV-TEST Best Android Security Award for Best Protection. Over a 12 month period and during six independent tests, Sophos Mobile Security for Android consistently achieved a perfect score for malware and threat detection.

AV-TEST Institute is a globally recognized, independent IT security research firm that benchmarks the effectiveness of security products. The category of ‘Protection’ tests a product’s ability to thwart current threats, including real-time malicious code or the latest malware from unsafe websites and emails. Sophos Mobile Security, which is a free app developed by Sophos for all Android users, demonstrated a consistent detection rate of 100 percent in each of the six test rounds during 2015. In each test, the product was required to scan, detect and remove nearly 3,000 dangerous apps.

“With the Sophos app, a mobile Android system is raised to the highest-possible security level,” commented Andreas Marx, CEO for AV-TEST GmbH.

The Sophos Mobile Security app provides full functionality designed to protect Android devices without reducing performance or impacting battery life. Using up-to-the-minute intelligence from SophosLabs, it scans apps on demand or in intervals set by the user. The antivirus functionality helps to avoid undesirable software that may lead to data loss and unexpected costs. If the device is lost or stolen, a remote lock or wipe will shield personal information from prying eyes. The app is free for use by individuals and business users and can be managed via Sophos Mobile Control within a business environment.

“We are proud to have consistently scored 100 percent against a rigorous testing methodology from a respected research team. Achieving the award for Best Protection is a testament to the skills of our SophosLabs engineers who work on the front lines of threat detection and response,” commented Simon Reed, vice president of SophosLabs at Sophos. “We continue to see a rise in malware targeting mobile platforms, making unprotected mobile devices an easy entry point for malware to enter a corporate network.”

Sophos Mobile Control 6.0

Earlier this month, Sophos announced the availability of Sophos Mobile Control 6.0, a comprehensive enterprise mobility management solution. This latest version now includes Sophos Secure Email, a container solution that isolates and secures business data from personal information on devices. Sophos Mobile Control 6.0 also enhances data protection capabilities and allows IT managers to oversee devices used throughout their organization through a simple interface and intuitive workflows. Further information about Sophos Mobile Control is available at www.sophos.com/mobile.

Sophos Mobile Security along with the full range of free tools from Sophos is available at http://www.sophos.com/forfree.

You can read the original article here.

Safer Internet Day, organized each year by the Insafe network, is a worthy intiative to promote safer and more responsible use of online and mobile technology by kids and young adults. Similar to Data Privacy Day or World Backup Day, we think Safer Internet Day is a worthy initiative because it raises awareness and helps educators teach people how to be smarter about online risks.

It’s important to teach kids about cyberbullying, oversharing, and practicing good security hygiene (like choosing better passwords, locking smartphones, and avoiding risky websites, emails, messages or texts).

There’s something else you can do to keep your whole family safe, including kids, parents, and even your neighbors and friends. It’s called Sophos Home, and it’s 100% free.

Sophos Home is an easy-to-use free tool that allows you to manage the security of up to 10 PCs and Macs from any web browser. It’s built upon the same security technology that protects millions of Sophos commercial customers, but it’s designed with home users in mind.

Protecting your family and friends is as easy as 1-2-3: just sign up for an account, download Sophos Home on your own computer, and send a link from the dashboard to anyone whose computer security you want to manage.

Once they download Sophos Home, your family and friends’ computers are linked to your Sophos Home account and you can manage their security from the Sophos Home Dashboard.

Sophos Home automatically protects you and your family against viruses, phishing websites and malicious downloads. You’ll get an alert in the dashboard about cleaned-up threats, blocked websites, and potentially unwanted applications (PUAs).

There’s another feature of Sophos Home that’s great for protecting the kids – built-in web filtering allows you to block inappropriate websites in categories that you choose, such as adult websites, gambling, drugs or violent content.

And unlike other home-use security software, we’ll never nag you to upgrade to a paid version or sell your data to third parties.

Visit sophos.com/home to get signed up, and start protecting the whole family.

You can read the original article here.

Sophos, a global leader in network and endpoint security, today announced that Gartner, Inc., has once again named Sophos as a Leader in its 2016 Magic Quadrant report for Endpoint Protection Platforms1 (EPP), a position Sophos has held since 2007.

In the report, Gartner identifies four primary stages in the security lifecycle: setting policy, prevention, detection and remediation, and evaluated EPP vendors based on whether the features their solutions offer address these four stages.

According to the report, “Most enterprise buyers are starting to look at EPP products that can address not only Windows, but a broad array of servers and clients. We evaluated a vendor’s ability to protect and manage a wide array of endpoints (such as Mac, iOS and Android devices), and to integrate those into the management console. Today, many large enterprise buyers are selecting a best-of-breed EMM [Enterprise Mobility Management] capability; however, within the next two years, we expect the EPP market to subsume this function (which is already happening at the SMB end of the market).” In addition to being an EPP Leader, Sophos is also a Visionary in the June 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Mobility Management Suites.

“Today’s threats demand advanced technology like Sophos Next-Gen Endpoint Protection, which prevents, detects, remediates and investigates as one solution,” said Dan Schiappa, senior vice president and general manager of Sophos Enduser Security Group. “Our researchers at SophosLabs are seeing an increase in the sophistication of malware – polymorphism is becoming the norm and previously unknown malware is on the rise.  These types of threats can only be detected by the integrated capabilities, such as exploit prevention, behavior analytics and pre-execution heuristics, that we have built into our products. We believe Gartner’s continued placement of Sophos in the Leaders quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms throughout the last nine years validates our strategy to constantly innovate endpoint protection by introducing industry-firsts, such as synchronized security with the Sophos Security Heartbeat.”

Sophos believes that its next-generation enduser, server and network protection technologies will further its leadership and continue to keep customers protected as threats evolve. “Sophos is one of a very few companies worldwide that have the breadth of solutions and the depth of expertise to truly advance the industry by protecting all platforms,” added Schiappa.

To download a complimentary copy of the Gartner report, click here.

You can read the original article here.

It’s 2016, so why are we still talking about mobile security like it’s a new thing? Maybe it’s because too many organizations still don’t realize the size of the risk, or they just aren’t aware of what their users are up to.

One of today’s biggest threats to the security and confidentiality of company information is data on the move between employee work and personal devices and cloud services.

According to the analyst and research firm Ovum, two-thirds (66%) of employees say they use personal smartphones for work. Yet when asked what percentage of their users are doing work on personal smartphones, employers are way off the mark, saying just 26% of workers do so.

Sophos has an answer for the new mobile reality, enabling the mobile workforce but securing company data without compromise – Sophos Mobile Control (SMC).

We’re already an industry leader and visionary in enterprise mobility management (EMM). And now I’m excited to introduce the newest version of SMC (6.0), bringing a host of new capabilities to keep your mobile workforce secure wherever they work and however they like to work.

You’re going to love the new SMC. These are the top six things that we think make SMC the best tool for mobile management and security, boosting productivity and user convenience, while giving you complete control.

1. Security and privacy for their data and yours.

SMC offers secure, encrypted containers to keep user and corporate data separate. Users have the convenience of a single device for business and personal use, without compromising corporate data security. Sophos Secure Email protects your business email, calendar and contacts from unauthorized access.

2. Corporate Browser = secure access to corporate websites, without additional passwords!

Push the most used and necessary corporate websites to employees via the Corporate Browser feature. Once a user logs into the Sophos container, they can access corporate websites without an additional password. Convenience and security – it’s a win-win.

3. Don’t wait to collaborate.

Let’s face it, employees are increasingly using personal cloud storage services for easy access to work files. It’s convenient for them, but a liability for you. SMC offers Secure Workspace, giving employees the flexibility they need with safe cloud storage.

Allow your people to easily share files, but keep them top secret. Simply and securely distribute important files to employees on the move. SMC integrates with SafeGuard Encryption for an additional layer of security, so data is protected no matter where it goes.

4. SMC’s no-nonsense approach to non-compliant devices.

Trust, but verify. SMC gives you easy control and enforcement of policies, so you can keep non-compliant devices from accessing company data. Enforce policies for passwords, rooting of devices, and unsafe apps, and quarantine devices with unsecure settings. It’s easier than ever to remote lock and wipe lost or stolen devices. You can also control access to app stores, and restrict access to insecure public Wi-Fi, NFC and Bluetooth.

5. Tell them to “Do it yourself.” Simple self-service frees up IT by reducing requests.

IT admins need a break from constant requests for simple but time-sucking requests, like resetting passwords or configuring corporate email. With our super-simple self-service portal, users can help you by helping themselves.

6. Simple security for mobile productivity.

SMC is more than just a mobility management solution – unlike other EMM solutions, SMC is from an industry-leading security vendor. Easy to integrate with your endpoint, encryption and network security, SMC puts security first, without sacrificing user productivity.

Plus, SMC is easy to deploy the way you want. Manage SMC yourself with our on-premise solution, or have it hosted by Sophos as a service – no installation, and no maintenance required.

The bottom line

Your users are accessing corporate data on their personal mobile devices more and more, creating management and security challenges. But you don’t have to accept that risk, and you can do something about it.

Sophos Mobile Control allows you to keep your users productive while securing all your mobile devices with minimal IT effort.

Try SMC for free at sophos.com/mobile.

You can read the original article here.

There’s a lot of noise (or confusion) in the market around what “next-gen” endpoint protection actually is. At Sophos, we believe next-gen endpoint protection must deliver an integrated system of prevention, detection and remediation technologies.

The Sophos System Protector does exactly this. It functions as the “brain” of our endpoint protection by automatically applying the best threat protection based on behavior, analytics, heuristics and many other built-in defenses.

Yet all the science and technology in the world is for naught if the protection doesn’t protect. And independent test houses provide the best assessment of how a product will perform in the real world.

Each testing house has a different methodology, and obtaining a balanced view across multiple independent testers is a great way to get an unbiased view of how security products perform in real-world scenarios.

Dennis Technology Labs recently gave Sophos its highest AAA rating, while AV-Test has further verified Sophos leadership. In AV-Test’s most recent round of tests in November-December 2015, Sophos scored a perfect 6 out of 6 for protection – for the fourth time in a row.

We’re delighted to see that both Dennis Technology Labs and AV-Test are rating Sophos so highly.

In contrast, some so-called “next-gen” vendors struggle to keep pace.

In AV-Test’s latest test, Cylance registered a disappointing 29 false positives, compared to an industry average of six, highlighting usability problems in these real-world testing scenarios.

Clearly there’s no replacement for a true “next-gen” endpoint protection solution that delivers in the real world.

You can read the original article here.

Sophos, a global leader in network and endpoint security, today announced the availability of Sophos Mobile Control 6.0, which now includes Sophos Secure Email, a container solution that isolates and secures business data from personal information on devices. Sophos Mobile Control 6.0 also enhances data protection capabilities and allows IT managers to oversee devices used throughout their organization through a simple interface and intuitive workflows.

Within Sophos Mobile Control 6.0 is Sophos Secure Email, a personal information management (PIM) container solution for email, calendar and contacts. Personal and corporate data can be separated, allowing organizations to manage business data security while enhancing user privacy. IT administrators can remotely provision email to employee mobile devices across popular platforms, including iOS, and multiple Android versions.

Also new to version 6.0 is Sophos Secure Workspace which includes Corporate Browser to facilitate safe access to frequently used business productivity sites and applications. Sophos Secure Workspace enables employees to seamlessly access and collaborate on the documents they need, when they need them, in a secure manner. Users also can control levels of access and publishing rights for various cloud storage providers like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Egnyte. For additional protection, users now can securely move documents and data between mobile devices, cloud storage and corporate endpoints as Sophos SafeGuard file encryption is built in.

With the continued growth in mobile malware, the ability to detect and quarantine infected devices is a growing priority for enterprise mobility management (EMM). In fact, more than 95 percent of attacks today involve harvesting credentials from customer devices and using those stolen credentials to log in to web applications, according to Verizon 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report.

Device security is especially difficult to manage in mid-size enterprises that have widely distributed workforces, yet are resource-stretched. A September 2015 CompTIA study, Managing the Multi-Generational Workforce, showed that nearly half (46 percent) of small and mid-sized businesses have now fully adopted BYOD as a standard practice, as opposed to only 28 percent of large enterprises.

Sophos Mobile Control 6.0 also detects jail-broken or rooted devices, plus malware and potentially unwanted applications (PUAs). The product blocks infected or non-compliant devices from entering the corporate network and automatically blocks malicious or undesirable websites. A recent analysis by third party AV-Test confirmed that Sophos Mobile Control 5.5 detected 100 percent of known Android malware applied during the test period. All of this is done behind the scenes to users so that productivity isn’t sacrificed and critical, confidential data remains private and safe.

Sophos Mobile Control 6.0 is available now from the global network of Sophos certified partners.

You can read the original article, here.

Cyberattacks and data breaches have created a lot negative headlines lately. The good news is that the epidemic of cybercrime has led to a growing emphasis on security in general and encryption in particular.

We wanted to find out just how many organizations are using encryption today to protect sensitive data like customer payment details, company financial records, employee records, and intellectual property.

So we worked with a research company to conduct a survey of IT decision makers at organizations large and small, in various industries, and in six different countries.

What we discovered is that the level of encryption in organizations leaves a lot of room for improvement, although there is hope that many companies are moving in the right direction.

You can see the results of our survey in this infographic, and in our encryption survey report. We’ve also put together some free resources, such as videos and guides, to explain how encryption can help you secure your valuable data. Check them out at sophos.com/encrypt.

You can read the original article, here.

We designed the new Sophos XG Firewall to meet our high standards for security made simple, and with the admin in mind. It should be comfortable and familiar to anyone with experience using a Cyberoam or Sophos UTM.

However, we want to help you get the most out of your XG Firewall, so we’ve created a comprehensive library of “How-To” videos, including a series of Getting Started and Networking videos.

It makes sense to start at the beginning, with a video about XG Firewall registration and setup. So in this post we’re featuring a short and easy-to-follow video that helps you set up your XG Firewall right out of the box.

The video shows you how to:

• Do initial setup of the firewall
• Open and log into the admin console
• Register your device with a MySophos account
• Use the network Setup Wizard
• Configure various interfaces and default policy settings

As an example, here’s one of the videos that covers how to make the most of the new Control Center and Main Menu Navigation

The full list of videos so far includes:

Getting Started

– Registration and Setup Wizard

– Control Center and Nav

– Licensing and Trials

– Password and Device Access

– Backup and Restore

Networking

– Zones and Interfaces

– DHCP

– Integrated Wireless Access Point

– Connection List

– Cisco IPSec VPN Client

– Site to Site IPsec VPN PreShared Keys

XG Firewall – Learn more

Read these other blog posts to learn about the many innovations in Sophos XG Firewall:

• Sophos XG Firewall: A network security ecosystem with many innovations
• Sophos XG Firewall – Simpler, faster, and more-in-one
• Sophos XG Firewall innovations – Policy management
• Sophos XG Firewall innovations – FastPath packet optimization
• Sophos XG Firewall innovations – User interface
• Sophos Firewall Manager and iView – Centralized management and reporting for all your XG Firewalls
• FAQs for Sophos UTM customers about the new XG Firewall

You can read the original article, here and here.

Sophos is pleased to announce that we received a prestigious Channel Excellence Award this week from IDG’s ChannelPartner magazine. The awards are presented to the top technology and distribution companies in the DACH region.

We were recognized with the 2016 Channel Excellence Award in Security Hardware, besting nine competitors in that category. Additionally, we were selected as a Preferred Vendor in the Security Software category.

The Channel Excellence Awards are based on a thorough and objective study conducted by GfK, the globally-recognized market research company.

Helmut Nohr, Sophos channel sales director, accepted the Channel Excellence Award at a gala held on 20th January in Munich, Germany.

This award complements another major channel win for Sophos in Western Europe – we were named Security Vendor of the Year at the Dutch IT-Channel Awards on 21st January.

The channel community has recognized Sophos with numerous awards, in regions all around the world.

Recently, Sophos was chosen as the CRN Security Vendor of the Year in DACH, and the Best UTM Vendor at the Reseller Middle East Hot 50 Awards 2015; and we garnered the top awards in every security category in the 2015 CRN Annual Report Card – for the second year in a row.

Although Sophos is the recipient of all these awards, it’s our partners who are the real winners, thanks to our channel-first strategy and our industry-leading products.

You can read the original article, here.

At Sophos, we believe you can never have enough encryption. Simply put, encryption is the best way to protect information from loss or theft, the last line of defense against cyberattacks and accidental data exposure.

And yet, we frequently hear about businesses that fail to encrypt their data, often after a devastating breach. Unfortunately, the state of data security today is poor – in 2014, 700 million records were compromised, according to the most recent Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report.

To find out why there are so many data security failures, we conducted a survey of 1,700 IT decision makers, covering six different countries and multiple industries. We asked them what types of data their organizations encrypt, and why they don’t always encrypt everywhere.

The results of our “The State of Encryption Today” survey are instructive, and give us a better understanding of where companies can do better.

Some of the most concerning findings of the survey reveal that, while many companies take the security of their customer data seriously, employees are not protected to the same level.

Private, highly sensitive employee data, including banking details, human resources (HR) files, and personal healthcare records, are frequently not protected by encryption.

For example, 31% of the companies we surveyed that store this type of data admitted that employee bank details are not always encrypted, and 43% don’t always encrypt employee HR records. Also, nearly half (47%) of those that store employee healthcare information fail to always encrypt these records.

While customer data breaches are the ones that get the biggest headlines, companies have an obligation – and may be legally required – to protect sensitive employee data. This is an area of data security that is far too often overlooked.

Company data remains at risk as well. Nearly one-third (30%) of organizations surveyed fail to always encrypt their own corporate financial information, and 41% inconsistently encrypts files containing valuable intellectual property, despite the increasing risks of economic espionage.

Another area of concern is that many organizations don’t recognize that the different types of encryption – full-disk and file encryption – are not and should not be mutually exclusive.

Although full-disk encryption is critical in cases of lost or stolen devices, it doesn’t protect the data once it leaves the device. File-level encryption is often necessary and complementary, so that data is always protected: at rest, in transit, and when stored off-device. Yet only 36% of companies said they use both full-disk and file encryption.

Meanwhile, cloud data security is one area driving increased adoption of encryption. More than eight in ten companies (84%) expressed concern about the safety of data stored in the cloud. Nevertheless, while 80% are using the cloud for storage, only 39% encrypt all files stored in the cloud.

This leads to the next crucial question – why are so many companies failing to protect all types of data, everywhere and at all times?

Companies cite budget, performance concerns and lack of deployment knowledge as the top three barriers to implementing an encryption solution.

Unfortunately, I’m not surprised by these findings because too many people mistakenly believe that encryption is too complicated or too expensive to implement. Despite these concerns, the reality is that modern, next-generation encryption solutions can be easy to deploy and quite cost-effective.

There are some positive results from our survey that give me hope that companies are starting to learn the value of encryption and are beginning to move in the right direction.

A majority of IT professionals we surveyed acknowledged that their companies need to do a better job of encrypting employee, customer and company information. The good news is that 69% of them said they plan to increase their use of encryption within the next two years.

The State of Encryption Today survey confirms that while encryption is widely used and accepted by businesses, there are critical gaps.

Promises to do better “next time” come too late, after the damage has already been done. For the organizations and individuals who are victims of data breaches, a single breach is one too many.

For more information about the challenges and opportunities for data protection in your organization, I recommend reading the full results and analysis of this survey at sophos.com/encryptionsurvey. We’ve also put together several free resources such as videos and guides to help you on your way to better security for all your data at sophos.com/encrypt.

You can read the original article, here.

Sophos has just passed with flying colors two important anti-malware tests conducted by the independent tester Dennis Technology Labs – one for enterprise and another for small and mid-sized business (SMB) endpoint security products – earning the highest rating of “AAA” in both tests.

The tests looked at how the products from Sophos, McAfee, Microsoft, Kaspersky, Symantec and Trend Micro fared in real-world scenarios that replicate what a user would experience when encountering an infected website.

Sophos Endpoint Protection received perfect protection scores in both tests, and was the only product tested with a perfect total accuracy rating in the enterprise test. We also were the only vendor to receive a perfect score in both the enterprise and SMB tests.

In the enterprise test, Sophos Endpoint Protection blocked all threats without any compromises (protection), and it did so without any false positives for legitimate software (legitimacy), for a total accuracy score of 100%, as you can see in the chart below.

Although Kaspersky also received a 100% total accuracy score, when you dig down into the numbers you can see that only Sophos had a perfect total accuracy rating (1024 out of a possible 1024), whereas Kaspersky’s rating (1020 out of 1024) was rounded up to 100%.

Kaspersky lost points in the protection area because it failed to defend against three out of the 100 malware samples used in the test. Rather than blocking the malware from gaining a foothold in the target system, Kaspersky’s product “neutralized” the threats after they had already infected the system, as shown in the “protection details” table below.

Symantec, Trend Micro and Microsoft all suffered in their protection scores because at least one threat compromised the target system, meaning their products allowed the threat to infect the system and did not neutralize the threat after infection.

You’ll notice that, although McAfee successfully defended against all threats in the test, its score in legitimate software ratings was the lowest of all products tested because of false positives.

On the SMB test, Sophos Endpoint Protection once again achieved perfect scores for blocking all threats without blocking any legitimate software.

In this test, Symantec and Kaspersky also received 100% total accuracy scores, but Kaspersky only defended against 97 out of 100 threats – it neutralized three threats after they had infected the target system, as shown below.

Trend Micro and McAfee scored low in protection accuracy because of threats that compromised the target system. Both companies also scored low on the legitimacy portion of the test due to false positives, seen in the table below.

For organizations of any size, a product that defends against all threats but blocks legitimate software is disruptive to the business.

And of course, an anti-malware product that only blocks threats most of the time is not nearly good enough – letting just one threat through is all that an attacker needs to do serious damage to your business’s network, data and reputation.

As Dennis Technology Labs said in its report: “The ideal product would block all threats and allow all legitimate applications.”

As the only product with perfect protection scores and perfect legitimate software scores in both the enterprise and SMB tests, we agree.

These results are also gratifying because Dennis Technology Labs is one of very few testers that truly tests real-world threats in near real time from end to end, giving all layers of protection we have in our product an opportunity to protect the user at every stage of the attack lifecycle.

For more information on test methodology and the complete results, visit the Dennis Technology Labs website to download the full Enterprise Anti-Virus Protection and Small Business Anti-Virus Protection reports.

To see how Sophos Endpoint Protection is simply better than the competition, try it for yourself – sign up today for a free trial.

You can read the original article, here.

I am very pleased to say that we’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response to our announcement that SurfRight is joining the Sophos family, from both SurfRight customers and industry analysts.

I’ve seen a number of great questions raised by SurfRight customers, and I wanted to take a moment to address them here. I can confirm that we are committed to continuing the development and enhancement of the successful HitmanPro product line.

We’re excited about the acquisition of SurfRight because we see a great value in their innovative technology, which we will integrate into our next-generation endpoint solutions for businesses and our standalone tools anyone can use.

We will continue to offer the “free scan” feature of HitmanPro. And Sophos will honor the terms and conditions of all existing SurfRight licenses, including any special promotions or deals. The support forums and services that customers use today will continue. And as we integrate the products into the Sophos Support Community to enhance customer experience, we will do so seamlessly, so no user is left behind.

Developing powerful tools and offering appropriate support for home users is not new to our strategy. We have an established portfolio of free commercial-grade tools for home users, and we continually invest in these products.

We believe that in order to be effective, security must be comprehensive, security must work together as a system, and security products should be simple to use. Effective security technology is important to business users and home users alike, and our portfolio of free tools follows the same development principles.

This month we released a brand new tool, Sophos Home, providing free Internet security for both PCs and Macs via a simple web console. We also offer Sophos Mobile Security for Android, Sophos XG Firewall Home Edition and Sophos Antivirus for Linux.

Sophos will bring the recently acquired SurfRight tools, such as the popular HitmanPro product, into our home user portfolio, and we will continue to develop, expand and improve the powerful HitmanPro technology.

We welcome all SurfRight customers, appreciate your engagement, and thank you for your passionate loyalty to a great product – your security is our priority.

You can read the original article here.

It feels like the perfect time to announce a new free tool that’s designed to bring to our commercial-grade Sophos security to all of your homes. In a bout of creative genius, we decided to call it … Sophos Home. Clever, right?

We decided to do this because we’ve been hearing from employees, customers, partners, and friends that the existing solutions in the market aren’t working for them. We hear complaints about ineffective/cheap consumer technology and products loaded with nagging adware; security companies that sell your data to third parties; and some that still think homes only have a single PC. It seemed to us that no one has done a very good job of building a product designed for the modern family. We thought we could do better so we kicked off the Sophos Home project.

I’m really proud of what our designers and engineers have come up with. It’s a brilliantly simple online management dashboard that sits on top of enterprise-grade, sophisticated Mac and Windows endpoint protection technology to keep all of your computers and family members safe.

It even includes the ability to set restrictions on what kind of websites each computer has access to (my 12 year old is no longer spending his college savings on the Draft Kings fantasy football site).

I could spend a long time telling you about the cool behavioral detection tech that watches apps for malicious actions, or the instant checking we do to make sure the website you’re visiting hasn’t been compromised. The real point is that Sophos Home is industry-leading security tech, but with a new management system designed from the ground up for the home user … and it’s free!

We protect over 100 million employees today and we feel they need the same protection at home, as do their kids, their parents, and their friends. There are far too many threats out there: infected websites that silently drop malware on your computer just by visiting a webpage; ransomware that locks up all your precious files with encryption, and throws away the key unless you pay; and phishing websites set up by hackers to look just like your bank’s website to steal your passwords and drain your accounts.

It’s time for a better solution designed for today’s connected family.

So, give it a try and let us know what you think. Simply go to sophos.com/home and create your free account. Download and install it. That’s all you need to do!

You can read the original article, here.

Sophos, a global leader in network and endpoint security, today announced the acquisition of SurfRight, an innovator in signature-less next-generation endpoint threat detection and response (ETDR) and advanced threat prevention.

Based in Hengelo, the Netherlands, SurfRight has developed a portfolio of technologies that prevent, detect and remediate zero-day and sophisticated attacks by interrupting malware and advanced persistent threat (APT) vectors. SurfRight’s real time anti-exploit technology focuses on detecting and preventing the memory manipulations and abuses that allow malicious code to run in the first place. Generic prevention of exploits at this early stage in the attack chain is a key enhancement to endpoint security mechanisms and can help thwart malicious code in the processor and memory. The portfolio also includes anti-espionage technology and enhanced protection against ransomware attacks such as CryptoLocker.

Sophos is recognized as a leader in endpoint protection today, with a growing set of next-generation technologies such as behavior-based analytics, Malicious Traffic Detection that monitors attempted outbound connections to known bad URLs, and Application Reputation which leverages a crowd-sourced big data warehouse managed by SophosLabs to determine whether a downloaded file is known to be good or bad and prompts the user to take appropriate action. This acquisition will further strengthen Sophos’ leading endpoint protection technology, by adding complementary new defense tactics, delivered either on premise or in the cloud.

Sophos will immediately work to integrate the SurfRight technology into its line of endpoint security solutions. Once the integration work has been completed, Sophos will make the technology acquired from SurfRight available via its global network of more than 15,000 channel partners.

SurfRight’s technology will also further enhance the effectiveness of Sophos’ synchronized security strategy, in which multiple components of security protection, including network security and endpoint security, actively and continuously communicate with each other. This innovative approach leads to faster threat detection and a dramatic reduction in the time and resources required to investigate and address security incidents.

Sophos will continue development and support for SurfRight’s existing product line including its popular HitmanPro malware scanning and removal tools, used by more than 20 million users worldwide. Sophos acquired SurfRight for a cash consideration of $31.8 million and will retain all SurfRight employees and the company’s office in Hengelo. SurfRight CEO Mark Loman will join the Sophos Enduser Security Group, reporting to Dan Schiappa.

You can read the original article, here.

For the third straight time, Sophos has earned 6 out of 6 points for protection in AV-Test’s independent evaluation of endpoint protection products. Our Sophos Endpoint test results show that we detected 100% of zero-day malware attacks in both September and October.

This is now six straight months of 100% detection in “real-world testing.” The “widespread and prevalent malware” test is now reported with an extra decimal place of precision, so instead of our previous 100% (rounded), we’re now at 99.7% in September and 99.9% in October.

We also received a score of six out of six on the usability portion of the test. We recorded zero false positives in that portion of the test. This follows up on our great performance in this category over the last year – we even won AV-Test’s 2014 Best Usability Award.

On the final portion of the test, measuring performance, we scored 5 out of 6 points, indicating that Sophos Endpoint doesn’t significantly slow a computer’s performance while performing tasks such as downloading software, accessing websites, installing programs and copying data. (Other independent tests have found that Sophos has among the lowest performance impacts in the industry).

The independent tests from AV-Test are a benchmark for how we’re doing, and we’re proud of our consistent results. We think it’s validation of our leadership in the industry.

But we’re not going to rest on our laurels.

We’re continuing to innovate and build new protection technologies into our next-gen endpoint solution such as malicious traffic detection and download reputation. Plus, we’re integrating our endpoint and network security together with our industry-first synchronized security technology.

To see how Sophos Endpoint Protection is simply better than the competition, try it for yourself – sign up today for a free trial.

You can read the original article, here.

For decades, the security industry has been treating network security and endpoint security as completely different entities. It’s just like putting one security guard outside the building and another inside the building, but not allowing them to talk to each other.

What if we started over with a fresh and radical approach that delivered better protection by enabling automated and real-time communication between network and endpoint security solutions. One that was synchronized across the entire threat surface, and highly automated, so it could do all this without adding staff or workload.

To accomplish this, we need a system with the following five attributes.

Ecosystem centric: We must prevent, find and stop breaches across the entire IT ecosystem by operating with full awareness of nearby objects and events.

Comprehensive: The solution would need to be comprehensive and cover multiple platforms and devices, to defend against attackers who attack the whole IT system, not just its parts.

Efficient: The solution must lower the team’s workload while improving protection. It cannot add another layer of technology and workload.

Effective: The solution must effectively prevent, detect, investigate and remediate today’s threats across the entire threat surface.

Simple: It must be simple to buy, simple to understand, simple to deploy and simple to use.

This list seems like a tall order indeed. Today’s IT security products are the opposite: threat centric, complex, non-comprehensive, resource intensive, and in total not as coordinated as the attacks they’re supposed to defend against.

Clearly, innovation is needed to succeed.

When the Sophos Next-Gen Firewall detects an advanced threat or an attempt to leak confidential data, it automatically utilizes the Sophos Security Heartbeat to take a series of actions across both the network and endpoint to mitigate risk and stop data loss instantly.

Similarly, if a protected endpoint is discovered to be compromised, synchronized security allows automated and near instantaneous isolation of this endpoint, preventing it from leaking confidential information or sending data to a command-and-control server.

This type of discovery and incident response, which could take weeks or months, has been reduced to seconds with synchronized security.

Synchronized Security – A new approach

Complex, threat centric, headcount dependent, myopic solutions will not meet the needs of resource constrained IT security teams. To reverse the trend of increasing incidents and breaches, we must take a much different approach than in the past. To do this, we must implement new solutions that are simple, yet effective, automated and coordinated – in short, synchronized via technology innovation such as the Sophos Security Heartbeat.

The good news is that this capability is available today from Sophos. To learn more about how synchronized security from Sophos can reduce your risk in the face of today’s cyberthreats, download our free whitepaper, “Synchronized Security: A Revolution in Protection” (no registration required), and visit sophos.com/heartbeat.

Υou can read the original article, here.